Flash (in) security

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Once again, Ed Bott hits the nail on the head in his ZDNet blog “How Secure is Flash?”Flash is more ubiquitous than Windows. But it’s riddled with sec
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ROFL And you wonder why Steve Jobs blasted Flash… he’s right, though. Flash is a real memory hog, and it annoys me intensely especially when I’ve had Pandora running for 7 hours straight and everything starts to slow down.

Part of the problem, though, is that EVERYTHING nowadays uses Flash, so it’s like Windows; everyone uses it, so it’s a popular target for viruses.

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I completely agree with the above user! Flash is a buggy piece of junk and the shockwave player is little better.

Under Windows Vista Flash is a reasuorce hog that gets worse and worse the more you use it especially when facebook and youtube are involved.

On my Mac running Max OS X Snow Leopard Flash does run better but it still has a nasty habit of crashing from time to time so I REALLY hope a proper flash alternative is invented soon so I can get rid of Flash once and for all!!!

Whoever does invent a proper secure and stable alternative to Flash will make an absolute fortune but I don’t see it happening anytime soon as Adobe has a real strangle hold on this particular part of the market and will probably sue the pants of anyone that tries :(!

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Flash alternatives are being developed under the HTML-5 protocols. We may yet be saved from this insecure madness.

“Flash Cookies” in Firefox can be managed and deleted with the Better Privacy add-on. End of that problem. I use this Extension frequently during on-line sessions.

Also useful are the NoScript and NoFlash Firefox add-ons. These are a pain in the neck to manage on a per-site, per-incident basis, but they provide better protections than anything else I know of, including “sandboxing” your browser. They can be set up to allow Flash content where and when you know it to be safe (like, NEVER?), and the settings for any given page or site can be made permanent. (I would not do this.)

Mercifully, Apple is bucking the Adobe ttrend, and Flash Player is not yet available for 64-bit browsing, so there’s a window of opportunity here to develop robust HTML-5 applications which could be more secure and offer better privacy. I am no fan of Saint Steven Jobs, but I think his stance here is courageous and useful, even if he himself is being very self-serving.

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I completely agree with the above user! Flash is one of the crummiest programs available in that it is a resource hog and causes all sorts of DEP and memory problems!

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And I just read in PC World that Microsoft is beginning to speak poorly of Flash. But then, MS has the competing Silverlight to worry about if HTML-5 is adopted.

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Silverlight isn’t bad but it isn’t great either

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Hello, I want to know if there is a way to set a default save drive. I have 2 drives, a 30 gig drive C: and a huge 2nd drive K: but anytime I download something or install something it goes to the small drive. I just want the small drive as a protected drive for like the OS and 2nd drive for everything else. I would appreciate any help you can give me, thanks

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javier —

You might get some help from experienced users by posting your question to the Windows Secrets Lounge (link at right on this page just below the Search Box). Post under Windows (whatever version you are using) and open a new thread. Joining is free and simple to do. Posting here isn’t likely to get as much attention from the right people.

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