Adobe Flash Player is a plugin that allows browsers such as Firefox to display Flash media on web pages. Flash is often used for animations, videos and games. This article explains how to install Flash.
Starting with Chrome 54 (October, 2016), Adobe Flash is no longer included with the Chrome browser or Chrome MSI. By default, Chrome installs Flash the first time a user encounters Flash content, and Chrome will continue to update Flash via the Chrome Component Updater. When you encounter Flash content, Chrome asks you to Click to enable Adobe Flash Player. When you click to enable Flash, click to Allow or Block Flash for that site. Review and remove sites you allowed or blocked from Flash settings.
When you visit a webpage that uses Flash and the plugin is missing, you will see the message 'A plugin is needed to display this content' for parts of the page that require Flash (if at all):
Follow the steps below to install the latest Flash Player plugin.
Table of Contents
Go to Adobe's Flash Player download page and download the Flash installer.
Caution: Adobe's download page may include a checkbox for optional software (such as Google Chrome or McAfee Security Scan) that is selected by default. If you do not clear the checkbox before downloading, that software will be installed on your computer when you open the Flash installer.
When the download has finished, close Firefox.
Click the Firefox menu , then click Exit.Click the Firefox menu at the top of the screen, then click Quit Firefox.Click the Firefox menu , then click Quit.
Open the Flash installer file you downloaded and follow the instructions.
Note: If you are having problems with the Flash installer from Adobe's download page, you can use this Flash Player installer link to directly download the full installer.
Go to Adobe's Flash Player download page and download the Flash installer.
Click the Firefox menu , then click Exit.Click the Firefox menu at the top of the screen, then click Quit Firefox.Click the Firefox menu , then click Quit.
Open the file you downloaded (i.e. install_flash_player_osx_intel.dmg).
In the Finder, open the Install Adobe Flash Player.app to run the installer, then follow the installer's instructions.
Go to Adobe's Flash Player download page.
When prompted, save the file (i.e. install_flash_player_'version'_linux.'processor'.tar.gz).
Click the Firefox menu , then click Exit.Click the Firefox menu at the top of the screen, then click Quit Firefox.Click the Firefox menu , then click Quit.
Open a Terminal window (in Gnome, click on the Applications menu, select Accessories, and then select Terminal.)
In the Terminal window, change to the directory where you saved the file you downloaded (e.g. cd /home/user/Downloads).
Extract libflashplayer.so from the file you downloaded with the command tar -zxvf install_flash_player_'version'_linux.'processor'.tar.gz.
As the super user, copy the extracted file, libflashplayer.so, to your Firefox installation directory's plugins sub-directory. For example, if Firefox is installed in /usr/lib/mozilla, use the command sudo cp libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins and then enter your super user password when prompted.
The latest version of the Flash plugin should perform better and crash less often. To check if Flash is up to date, visit Adobe's Flash Player Help page. If it says that Flash needs to be updated, install the latest version manually using the steps in the section above.
See Flash Plugin - Keep it up to date and troubleshoot problems for steps to troubleshoot the Flash plugin.
For years now, the Chrome browser has reported that it was up to date, even when there was an old copy of the Flash Player embedded in the browser.
I mention this now, because Adobe released a new version of the Flash player today, one that fixes 13 bugs, many of them critical. The usual method of forcing a Chrome update (Help -> About Google Chrome) on Windows and OS X/macOS may or may not update Flash.
You can, however, force Chrome to update Flash by entering
chrome://components
in the browser address bar. Look for the Adobe Flash Player in the list of components. Ignore the status. If the version is anything other than 24.0.0.221, it needs to be updated.
Click on the gray 'Check for Update' button and the update happens in a flash (sorry). If you look closely, the status goes from 'component downloading' to 'update ready' to 'Component updated.' It literally takes a second.
If all went well, the version should now be 24.0.0.221.
When I first wrote about this last year, I noted that Flash can not be updated this way on Chrome OS. This is still true.
I just checked two Chromebooks. Each was running Chrome OS version 55.0.2883.105 and each claimed that 'Your Chromebook is up to date' despite using Flash version 24.0.0.186 which was released back on December 13, 2016.
I guess it depends on your definition of 'date'.
Download Adobe Flash Player Gratis
FEEDBACK
Download Adobe Flash Player 10
Now that Computerworld, and all of parent company IDG's websites, have eliminated user comments, you can get in touch with me privately by email at my full name at Gmail. Public comments can be directed to me on twitter at @defensivecomput