# Why does Adobe Flash need to constantly update itself every few days? Is the code that awful? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 5, 2010, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-adobe-flash-need-to-constantly-update-itself-every-few-days-is-the-code-that-awful/545643 "2010-07-05T22:37:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Isilder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@Isilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isilder)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2015, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-adobe-flash-need-to-constantly-update-itself-every-few-days-is-the-code-that-awful/545643/21 "2015-12-15T21:59:56Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > I really don’t know what you are talking about. This is the first real update to Flash in ages. Yeah, there were two security patches last cycle. Firefox had what, 14? (in 3.0, 3.5 had at least 6). > > And, no, following the coding practice of even Microsoft or Apple should not be a reason to drive them into an early grave. Alternatives to Flash have been out for a while, and I still have yet to see anyone remove the flash version of anything. And I have yet to meet anyone who doesn’t install flash on their main computer–even people who hate it. Ironically it is THIS board that causes me to remove flash, this board constantly causes me "flash is not responding … continue or stop it ? ". I can get by as most popular video sites can also HTML5 stream video… And there have been many updates for firefox flash, perhaps because of the version changes and fixes to firefox ? And perhaps because of HTML5 ? being tested out by “the usual suspect” sites ? (Google controls the reigns for “improving” firefox, by threat to withdraw funding and resources … Which reminds me… “They” are ending the ability to install Flash in Firefox! Cause like, their site, youtube, works via HTML to Chrome or Firefox… ) In any case, the threat from HTML5 Video, which would allow a video site to create their own video viewing features, is causing Adobe to add features to Flash… So the claim "flash is at no risk of being dumped and so therefore can rest on its laurels " is off, it has to keep adding features that are appearing in HTML5 viewing sites. ( Sure the programmer for one site, eg youtube, may add features which are unique to it at first… But once one site proves its possible, and demonstrates how, the other sites,eg facebook, copy fast …) ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2015, 9:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-adobe-flash-need-to-constantly-update-itself-every-few-days-is-the-code-that-awful/545643/22 "2015-12-17T09:31:55Z")
> [@Isilder](#): > > In any case, the threat from HTML5 Video, which would allow a video site to create their own video viewing features, is causing Adobe to add features to Flash… . HTML5 is getting Flash features, including chunks of the Flash API from Adobe. ---
**Author:** ![SpyOne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/82dd89/32.png) [@SpyOne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpyOne)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2015, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-adobe-flash-need-to-constantly-update-itself-every-few-days-is-the-code-that-awful/545643/23 "2015-12-17T15:10:29Z")
Please ignore ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2015, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-adobe-flash-need-to-constantly-update-itself-every-few-days-is-the-code-that-awful/545643/24 "2015-12-17T15:33:36Z")
I assume it’s the ever-escalating war between “download that YouTube (etc) video for you” algorithms and Adobe, which offers Flash as a way to provide videos that people theoretically can’t download to their local computer. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2015, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-adobe-flash-need-to-constantly-update-itself-every-few-days-is-the-code-that-awful/545643/25 "2015-12-17T17:01:54Z")
I always figured that it was just one update that never managed to actually install itself, and just keeps on trying. The first few times I got the Adobe update thing come up, I tried to update it, only to get a cryptic “update failed” error at the very last step. So now I just ignore them, because I know they’re not going to work anyway. ---
**Author:** ![GusNSpot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gusnspot/32/436_2.png) [@GusNSpot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GusNSpot)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2015, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-adobe-flash-need-to-constantly-update-itself-every-few-days-is-the-code-that-awful/545643/26 "2015-12-17T18:56:55Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I always figured that it was just one update that never managed to actually install itself, and just keeps on trying. The first few times I got the Adobe update thing come up, I tried to update it, only to get a cryptic “update failed” error at the very last step. So now I just ignore them, because I know they’re not going to work anyway. Yeah, this… ↑ ↑ ↑ ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2015, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-adobe-flash-need-to-constantly-update-itself-every-few-days-is-the-code-that-awful/545643/27 "2015-12-18T01:39:29Z")
If you use Chrome, you can uninstall Flash from everywhere else in your system and not worry about updating it anymore. Chrome has its own built-in, silently autoupdated, sandboxed instance of Flash, separate from everything else on your system: [https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/flash-player-google-chrome.html#main\_How\_do\_I\_install\_the\_latest\_version\_of\_Flash\_Player\_in\_Google\_Chrome\_](https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/flash-player-google-chrome.html#main_How_do_I_install_the_latest_version_of_Flash_Player_in_Google_Chrome_) Deleting other copies of Flash on your computer will get rid of the annoying updates and make you safer to boot. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2015, 8:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-adobe-flash-need-to-constantly-update-itself-every-few-days-is-the-code-that-awful/545643/28 "2015-12-21T08:45:09Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I always figured that it was just one update that never managed to actually install itself, and just keeps on trying. The first few times I got the Adobe update thing come up, I tried to update it, only to get a cryptic “update failed” error at the very last step. So now I just ignore them, because I know they’re not going to work anyway. I reset the date on my computer back 5 years or so to get my Adobe updates to work. I think that the old (un-updated) version of the adobe updater on the computer thought that 2015 was an invalid date. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2015, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-adobe-flash-need-to-constantly-update-itself-every-few-days-is-the-code-that-awful/545643/29 "2015-12-21T12:12:48Z")
> [@Reply](#): > > If you use Chrome, you can uninstall Flash from everywhere else in your system and not worry about updating it anymore. > > Chrome has its own built-in, silently autoupdated, sandboxed instance of Flash … I run mostly Chrome, but it seemed to refuse to allow downloads of YouTube videos, so I run Firefox for that. Is this normal? Are my out-of-date plug-ins the problem? My configuration is confused because, for years now, I’ve refused all update requests and now my Chrome and Adobe Flashplayer are both way behind. (I think I did let Firefox update several months ago. Yes, I’ve probably got some malware by now, but I just kill the most egregious compute hogs from the Task Manager. :eek: ) ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2015, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-adobe-flash-need-to-constantly-update-itself-every-few-days-is-the-code-that-awful/545643/30 "2015-12-22T05:43:01Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I always figured that it was just one update that never managed to actually install itself, and just keeps on trying. The first few times I got the Adobe update thing come up, I tried to update it, only to get a cryptic “update failed” error at the very last step. So now I just ignore them, because I know they’re not going to work anyway. Why not completely uninstall Flash and then go out and get the latest version, bypassing any automatic updates? ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2015, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-adobe-flash-need-to-constantly-update-itself-every-few-days-is-the-code-that-awful/545643/31 "2015-12-22T05:56:30Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > I run mostly Chrome, but it seemed to refuse to allow downloads of YouTube videos, so I run Firefox for that. Is this normal? Are my out-of-date plug-ins the problem? > > My configuration is confused because, for years now, I’ve refused all update requests and now my Chrome and Adobe Flashplayer are both way behind. (I think I did let Firefox update several months ago. Yes, I’ve probably got some malware by now, but I just kill the most egregious compute hogs from the Task Manager. :eek: ) Keep Chrome updated. Uninstall Flash from the control panel. Make sure HTML5 in YouTube is enabled: [https://www.youtube.com/html5](https://www.youtube.com/html5) ---
**Author:** ![dbemont](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/da6949/32.png) [@dbemont](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dbemont)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2016, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-adobe-flash-need-to-constantly-update-itself-every-few-days-is-the-code-that-awful/545643/32 "2016-01-09T20:53:29Z")
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