# The following plug-in has crashed: Shockwave Flash But I am running Flash Block! **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 4, 2011, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-following-plug-in-has-crashed-shockwave-flash-but-i-am-running-flash-block/566354 "2011-01-04T12:55:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Stan\_Shmenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/94ad74/32.png) [@Stan\_Shmenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stan_Shmenge)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2011, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-following-plug-in-has-crashed-shockwave-flash-but-i-am-running-flash-block/566354/1 "2011-01-04T12:55:49Z")
And I didn’t allow a single instance of your crapware. Can Flash just DIAF? Please. When you aren’t slowing my system to a crawl, you are crashing it. Hey, Adobe, I love Photoshop. I really do. But Jobs is right. Flash is a piece of crap. This would be in the pit, but I do have a question. How the fuck can Flash crash when IT IS BLOCKED?!? ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2011, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-following-plug-in-has-crashed-shockwave-flash-but-i-am-running-flash-block/566354/2 "2011-01-04T13:04:45Z")
Why don’t you uninstall the flash plug-in and the flash player, instead of installing a second piece of software to block the first piece of software? ---
**Author:** ![Stan\_Shmenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/94ad74/32.png) [@Stan\_Shmenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stan_Shmenge)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2011, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-following-plug-in-has-crashed-shockwave-flash-but-i-am-running-flash-block/566354/3 "2011-01-04T13:11:38Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > Why don’t you uninstall the flash plug-in and the flash player, instead of installing a second piece of software to block the first piece of software? Because I do occasionally want to run flash, duh. ---
**Author:** ![Stan\_Shmenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/94ad74/32.png) [@Stan\_Shmenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stan_Shmenge)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2011, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-following-plug-in-has-crashed-shockwave-flash-but-i-am-running-flash-block/566354/4 "2011-01-04T13:12:41Z")
And to clarify, I was careful not to click on any flash stuff since my last reboot, so it is perplexing that flash can still make trouble. Arrgh. ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2011, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-following-plug-in-has-crashed-shockwave-flash-but-i-am-running-flash-block/566354/5 "2011-01-04T13:28:01Z")
Do you have the latest version of Flash? Outdated versions can crash a browser. Also check for viruses that exploit old versions of Flash. I use [K-Meleon](http://kmeleon.sourceforge.net/) for my browser which like Firefox is Mozilla based and it has a great Flash toggle feature, where you exclude Flash from everything. Flash then only comes up as an option which you hit a button and it runs. ---
**Author:** ![Stan\_Shmenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/94ad74/32.png) [@Stan\_Shmenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stan_Shmenge)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2011, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-following-plug-in-has-crashed-shockwave-flash-but-i-am-running-flash-block/566354/6 "2011-01-04T14:03:09Z")
> [@Markxxx](#): > > Do you have the latest version of Flash? Outdated versions can crash a browser. Also check for viruses that exploit old versions of Flash. > > I use [K-Meleon](http://kmeleon.sourceforge.net/) for my browser which like Firefox is Mozilla based and it has a great Flash toggle feature, where you exclude Flash from everything. Flash then only comes up as an option which you hit a button and it runs. Using Chrome and Flash Block. Isn’t that pretty much the same? ---
**Author:** ![dzeiger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/46a35a/32.png) [@dzeiger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dzeiger)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2011, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-following-plug-in-has-crashed-shockwave-flash-but-i-am-running-flash-block/566354/7 "2011-01-04T14:33:42Z")
I believe that Flash content does have to load at least enough for Flashblock to recognize it as Flash content. ---
**Author:** ![Stan\_Shmenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/94ad74/32.png) [@Stan\_Shmenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stan_Shmenge)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2011, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-following-plug-in-has-crashed-shockwave-flash-but-i-am-running-flash-block/566354/8 "2011-01-04T14:35:35Z")
> [@dzeiger](#): > > I believe that Flash content does have to load at least enough for Flashblock to recognize it as Flash content. Enough to fuck up the browser? Great product, Adobe. Shouldn’t Flashblock just recognize the file type and say “Nyet”? ---
**Author:** ![srzss05](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/898d66/32.png) [@srzss05](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/srzss05)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2011, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-following-plug-in-has-crashed-shockwave-flash-but-i-am-running-flash-block/566354/9 "2011-01-04T14:54:01Z")
> [@Markxxx](#): > > where you exclude Flash from everything. Flash then only comes up as an option which you hit a button and it runs. IE has a similar feature as well, but they hide it pretty good. Also, it is an all or nothing block on a site by site basis, and if you later want to block it on a certain site after allowing it to run, you have to block it on all sites and later give them permission to use it again for the sites you don’t want to block. ---
**Author:** ![tellyworth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/977dab/32.png) [@tellyworth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tellyworth)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2011, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-following-plug-in-has-crashed-shockwave-flash-but-i-am-running-flash-block/566354/10 "2011-01-04T23:08:36Z")
I’m not sure about FlashBlock specifically, but the way some similar apps work is to identify themselves as a Flash player plugin. When the browser encounters Flash content, it thinks it’s loading the Flash player, but it’s actually loading FlashBlock. So it’s possible that what crashed was not the Shockwave Flash player, but the FlashBlock plugin itself - your browser said it was the Flash player because that’s what it thinks it is. But I don’t really know, just speculating.