Ubuntu – Flashplayer security doubts

12.04flashSecurity

I am an Ubuntu newbie and I installed Ubuntu Desktop 12.04, 64 bit. As I noticed the Firefox is the actual version, but the Adobe Flashplayer was the 11.2 version which has, I guess, some security problems?

I was connected to the Internet for several days before I noticed that the Flashplayer is 11.2.

My question is – is there any chance of my PC being infected now? Can BIOS be infected, or if I format the HD and install Ubuntu again everything will be fine?

Best Answer

11.2 is just the major version. The actual current version is 11.2.202.297 and that is a maintenance release for 11.2, released in July 2013, including the same fixes that the 11.8 major version received.

From Adobe:

Flash Player 11.2 is the last supported Flash Player version for Linux OS. Adobe will continue to provide security updates.

I'm not sure how long that will continue but they still maintain a 10.something extended support release, so we're hopefully good for a few years yet.

Ignore Mozilla Plugincheck. It doesn't know what it's talking about.

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Diagnosing persistent Flash streaming failure for DRM content

I'd followed most of the advice I could find online, but ran across these extra steps to get the HAL working. It comes from a post on Amazon's Prime Instant Video support thread:

Stephen Gutknecht says:

On a new (virgin) install of Ubuntu 13.04 x64/x32 - there are some steps that I don't see getting enough attention.

In addition to:

close your Chromium/Chrome and Firefox:
sudo apt-get install libhal1 hal

***also do***

sudo mkdir /etc/hal/fdi/preprobe
sudo mkdir /etc/hal/fdi/information
/usr/sbin/hald --daemon=yes --verbose=yes
rm -rf ~/.adobe
rm -rf ~/.macromedia

Then open Chromium / Firefox fresh and give it a try!

This is what I did and have DRM FLash videos working smoothly in Chrome on Ubuntu using the Adobe Flash plugin with HAL installed.

Ubuntu – How to install Flash player on Ubuntu

Note: This answer is severely outdated. Please refer to karel’s answer instead which describes how Canonical and Adobe currently recommend to install Flash Player in Ubuntu.

For Linux, the latest version of Adobe Flash Player is 11.2 which you already have. Sorry, but it cannot be updated to 11.8. Adobe provides security backports to Flash Player 11.2 for Linux.

To install the Flash plug-in on Ubuntu 13.04 (Raring Ringtail), please follow this process:

Enable the multiverse repository, as shown here: How do I enable the "multiverse" repository?
Open a terminal window (press Ctrl+Alt+T) and copy/paste this line:
```
sudo apt-get install flashplugin-installer 
```
When the Flash Player is installed, close the terminal window and restart your browser.

Best Answer

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Ubuntu – Diagnosing persistent Flash streaming failure for DRM content

Ubuntu – How to install Flash player on Ubuntu

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