> "My browsers have not allowed Flash to be active for a long time."

+1

I've completely removed Flash from all of my Macs. If a web site uses Flash it's their problem not mine. They need to update to HTML5 if they want my business. IMHO, Flash is just a battery drain and virus magnet and serves no useful purpose anymore.

~jr

I have just removed all the flash players.

VMP

Scary stuff out there. And even if you don't deal with Flash, these kind of stories are reminders to back up your drives as often as possible.

Backup often yes, but not overwrite the same backup data with the source.
Then you would contaminate and lose your backed up data too.

I find it important to backup the very important data also to fixed media like Bluray which cannot be overwritten, affected later.

And keep a weekly and monthly back up, separately on HD.
Then you can at least go back one month, if the weekly is gone too.

Something I see people do too less is emptying their history, temp Internet files (cookies) from their browsers, that trashes many risky stuff from your browser and computer.

I would do this especially before logging into your bank account, trackers and loggers that you have collected during surfing could track everything you type.

I do it several times a day, it seems I am not the only one.

http://www.cnet.com/forums/discussions/how-often-do-you-delete-your-temp-internet-files-cookies-189161/


VMP

HTML 5 will drain your battery just as much if not more ( with similar type of content ) and it's not any more secure than flash.

Stop the nonsense please. HTML 5 is like flash's poor cousin, slow, clunky, buggy and you can inject any kind of malware into it just as easily.

Probably the only reason we don't see as much HTML 5 malware is because it hasn't been around as long or used as much as Flash. It's only a matter of time. There are more and more viruses wreaking havoc on the MacOS every day now even though most Mac users always claimed their reason for using Mac was because it was virus-free.

It's a tough call. I spent the last few days updating FlashPlayer on about 600 school PCs. I'd love to get rid of it, but a huge amount of educational websites our teachers use are all Flash based. It would be really nice if they'd switch to Air instead.

Kelly, your example illustrates why Flash will linger for quite a while. There's a lot of installed instructional material that was authored in Flash over the last decade or so, and a lot of institution-like entities that have no real plans to re-author material, or redevelop it from the ground up.

For example, I still work in Flash most days of the week. It's all production work with no budget for redevelopment, and that's probably the key stumbling block with complex animation in HTML5/JS/CSS. Lack of production level tools.

Would I be open to delivering something else? Sure. As soon as my client is ready to host it. I can easily imagine that taking another 10 years for clients who have no desire to pay for a change.

Rob