How do you update flash in Linux?

[Red Squirrel]

This is something I've never had to do but now there's a vulnerability and it's disabled and I have to click to enable... rather just update so I'm not vulnerable.

It sends me to Adobe's site and I pick "apt for Ubuntu" link but instead of prompting me to download and save the file it's prompting me to choose what to open it with. I don't know? That's why I want to DOWNLOAD it, then I can see what kind of file it's going to be and use the proper tool at that point.

How do I go about doing this?

Also Adobe says they will stop supporting Linux. What happens then? As much as I hate Flash, it's needed for a lot of stuff and you can't really get away from that. Is there an open source version that is part of the package manager?

 

[Demo24]

Whenever I install flash on Ubuntu I use the Ubuntu software center, which is probably what it's trying to open with.

 

[bbhaag]

Don't you have an update manager installed to do this for you? Like when you use Mint it's the little shield in the bottom right corner. When it's blue you know you have an update.

Edit:Your not trying to update Flash beyond 11.2 are you? I don't think that's possible. Not for Linux based systems anyway.

 

[Jodell88]

There's no update as yet for the vulnerability. If you need flash that badly Google Chrome/Chromium has pepper flash that is up to version 16 or so.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Oh so once there is an update it should do it on it's own? I just assumed there was already an update, given it's telling me to update because it's not secure. I can live with the warning for now then, I can still use it I just have to tell it to. I'll wait for the update.

 

[lxskllr]

What do you use Flash for? It's been a couple months at least since I last turned it on.

FlashDisable for Firefox is a nice addon. It gives you a button to click for enable/disable of Flash.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/flashdisable/?src=api

I should probably just unistall the trash altogether. It's a garbage technology by a garbage company...

 

[Red Squirrel]

Lots of stuff on the web uses flash, pretty much any video site like Youtube. While some videos are html5, not all of them are, and last I checked html5 video does not work in Linux anyway. Flash is garbage but can't really get around it unfortunately unless there is an emulator plugin of sorts that will run the flash content.

 

[lxskllr]

Lots of stuff on the web uses flash, pretty much any video site like Youtube. While some videos are html5, not all of them are, and last I checked html5 video does not work in Linux anyway. Flash is garbage but can't really get around it unfortunately unless there is an emulator plugin of sorts that will run the flash content.

I haven't used Flash on Youtube in years. Some of the lesser video sites are still Flash only, but I run into them infrequently. Sometimes I decide not to watch at all because it's probably stupid. The other times I enable Flash with FlashDisable.

gnash and lightspark are a couple libre projects to work with Flash, but they aren't so great. There's also the Shumway addon for Firefox, but again, it's hit/miss. Flash is dying, and I don't see any reason to put much thought in it. Probably the best thing is to ignore content that uses Flash, and write to the site telling them why you aren't interested in what they're doing.

 

[ninaholic37]

What version do you have now? Here an alternative download to 11.2.202.425 with instructions (the tar.gz one sounds straightforward enough, I think...)

 

[Red Squirrel]

I have 11.2.202.335 so that one is newer.

Only thing if I install through a tar.gz will the installer know that I have one on the system already installed through another means (package manager I'm guessing? It came with system as default part of install).

 

[ninaholic37]

Yeah if you close your browser, delete the old Flash files manually, extract the tar.gz manually to the plugins directory, then open Firefox again to see if it worked, package manager will probably have no idea what happened and you can post on Ubuntu forums "bwahahaha I HAS CONFUSED YOUR SILLy PACKAGE MANAGER WITH MY SUPERIOR INSTALL ANTICS TO GET NEW VERSION NOT IN PACKAGE mANAGER!" and you will be praised as Hardcore Linux Master! maybe (if it works)...

 

[Scarpozzi]

I've been seeing that error for the past few days. Quite a few sites gripe.... I just assumed Adobe would get around to testing an update eventually. I really wish flash would just go away.

 

[Jodell88]

I've been seeing that error for the past few days. Quite a few sites gripe.... I just assumed Adobe would get around to testing an update eventually. I really wish flash would just go away.

If you have the latest version and it's still showing up.

1. Close firefox
2. Uninstall the flash plugin
3. Open firefox and close it again
4. Install the flash plugin

That sorted out the issue for me and a few people on the Arch forums.

 

[Red Squirrel]

How is the update normally put through, is this something that normally updates through apt-get upgrade? Or is the GUI update tool different? Coincidencly I just disabled that a while back, I was just getting tired of being bombarded with popup notifications every single day. I tend to just run apt-get upgrade and yum update on my systems every now and then when I'm not in the middle of something.

Should the update have been available by now? When I do apt-get upgrade it just says there's no updates. I want to avoid hacking it up manually if I can given it's already installed through the package manager and I don't want some kind of conflict or other issue.

What's interesting is way more sites use flash than I thought. I get the warning on quite a few sites. Though the only site where it seems to matter is Youtube, and the other odd video site. Though I've seen some sites use flash for the most ridiculous things like web forms. I just wish flash would go away but people still insist on coding in it.

 

[MrColin]

Oh so once there is an update it should do it on it's own? I just assumed there was already an update, given it's telling me to update because it's not secure. I can live with the warning for now then, I can still use it I just have to tell it to. I'll wait for the update.

You're probably getting a browser based malicious pop-up for a fake flash update intended for windows users. Adobe stopped supporting/updating flash for linux over a year ago. Google has the the last remaining flash support for linux built in to chrome. chromium does not have working flash/pepperflash.

 

[lxskllr]

You're probably getting a browser based malicious pop-up for a fake flash update intended for windows users. Adobe stopped supporting/updating flash for linux over a year ago. Google has the the last remaining flash support for linux built in to chrome. chromium does not have working flash/pepperflash.

It's a legitimate warning. I believe Flash for GNU/Linux still gets security updates, but no new features.

 

[ninaholic37]

edit: nevermind *flees thread*

 

[Red Squirrel]

It's a legitimate warning. I believe Flash for GNU/Linux still gets security updates, but no new features.

Yep that's the warning I get.

Did a search on my system for libflashplayer.so is this the right one? :

/usr/lib/flashplugin-installer/libflashplayer.so

I stopped it since it was searching my entire network too which could take a while.

so if I download the tar.gz file and do the ./configure it should generate the .so file and I can just copy it to that location? (backup old one first of course)

 

[ninaholic37]

Yeah if you close your browser, delete the old Flash files manually, extract the tar.gz manually to the plugins directory, then open Firefox again to see if it worked, package manager will probably have no idea what happened and you can post on Ubuntu forums "bwahahaha I HAS CONFUSED YOUR SILLy PACKAGE MANAGER WITH MY SUPERIOR INSTALL ANTICS TO GET NEW VERSION NOT IN PACKAGE mANAGER!" and you will be praised as Hardcore Linux Master! maybe (if it works)...

I finally got around to trying this. I went from something like 421 to 460 on my old laptop by just deleting the old libflashplayer.so from usr/lib/mozilla/plugins, then extracting that file from the newest Linux tar.gz on Adobe's site to the same place, and when I opened Firefox it said I was on 460 and all is working well again. :thumbsup:

 

[PingSpike]

There's a trick to get pepperflash from chrome to work within firefox. I have no idea what I'm doing but I had it working on Lubuntu/Firefox by following some instructions. I had wanted to play some stupid flash animal game with my kid on a shitty netbook I had. The game worked and adobe website reported flash 16 so it seemed I succeeded. This probably isn't worth the effort though.

 

[ninaholic37]

edit: Due to the annoyance of repeated "forced updates" with the 11.2 series, I went back to Flash 10.3.183.90 (6/11/2013), which doesn't force me to update.