Saturday, December 22, 2012

Browser - Adobe Flash

Links: Slackware Flash update :: Opera plug-in page

Like most reasonable people, I dislike Adobe's proprietary obsfucation. It's most oppressive in the Linux environment, where its intrusive modules don't interact well with Linux's more transparent libraries.

A recent Adobe Flash update1 screwed my Iceweasel installation and, in turn, destabilized a previously 3-years' stable Zenwalk install. That is, immediately following the update of (libflashplayer.so), including complete deletion of all prior versions, etc, the previously rock-solid Iceweasel intermittently crashed at Flash intensive sites. A new installation of FlashBlock did not stop the crashes. Reinstallation of all three applications did no better. I eventually had to move to ArchLinux from Zenwalk, due to these Adobe-related Flash crashes. In other words, I had to change my entire OS structure thanks to Adobe's closed-sourced, DRM intensive elements, which are so-far impossible for average users to ignore for a typical browsing environment.

1Pop-up windows demanding Adobe Flash Player updates began to appear in sponsored YouTube videos December 2012. Prior to this update ads could be bypassed. Following the update, they could not.