James's Weblog

In recent years, Adobe Flash has been a prime target for malicious hackers in which to find security exploits. (Don’t even get me started on the security vulnerability of the week in Adobe Reader.) Additionally, in the era of the zombie PC apocalypse, compromised computers hurt everybody.

It’s therefore crucial that users update Flash on their systems to patch known exploits, yet Adobe strangely makes it harder than necessary to update Flash.

Upon booting my computer, an automatic Flash update tool notices that my installed version is out-of-date. (It’s no longer a good time to check for updates on boot; many people reboot very seldomly these days.)

Clicking the “Install” button then shows:

This is even worse on Vista or Windows 7 since they will require an additional UAC prompt. There are three prompts asking the user the same thing. When you ask someone a question, then ask again, “Are you sure?”, and yet again, “Are you really sure?”, some people are liable to change their minds.

I admit it’s unfair for me to complain about the UAC prompt since that’s outside of Adobe’s control, but their own, second installation prompt is simply goofy. Moreover, all the EULA nonsense gets in the way too. They should avoid introducing reasons for people to change their mind.

Thankfully, it does seem that Adobe again lets people download the Flash installer manually without using their silly Adobe Download Manager browser plug-in.