Flash Player ?

[MrJan]

I don't know what has gone on but for some reason Flash has decided to update itself and is now completely f***** on my computer. Installation seems to have gone right but now I can't play Youtube or iPlayer videos. Tried looking at the troubleshooting which had something about som windows thing which I downloaded and did and now it still doesn't work. This has seriously f***ed me off tonight because I must have tried downloading it about 6 times and it seems to take an age and then doesn't work.

Does anyone know how I might fix it without getting too wound up in the computer speak that troubleshooting guides are usually full of?

[RaceFanStan]

Sounds to me that you may have been infected with a virus. :bulb:
The evil computer freaks use Flash Player among other things.
ActiveX is one of their favorite tools to spread their destruction. :s
Run a virus check QUICK & perhaps things can be returned to normal.
Always be careful when downloading program updates, be sure you trust the source.
If it updated itself without a prompt from you, that clearly tells me it probably had malicious intent. :bulb:

[MrJan]

Cool, doing a scan now but so far hasn't come up with anything other than tracking cookies (which seem to be an endless irritation :S )

Can't remember actually installing anything myself except from the Adobe site but with Vista I've got so fed up with the constant requests that I pretty much click OK for anything.

[Daniel]

Sounds to me that you may have been infected with a virus.
The evil computer freaks use Flash Player among other things.
ActiveX is one of their favorite tools to spread their destruction.
Run a virus check QUICK & perhaps things can be returned to normal.
Always be careful when downloading program updates, be sure you trust the source.
If it updated itself without a prompt from you, that clearly tells me it probably had malicious intent.

No viruses just Flash being a PoS. Adobe are famous for not fixing issues with flash and with Acrobat.

I had A similar issue while running a Beta version of IE8 Jan Yeo and couldn't find a rememdy for it. I uninstalled flash, reinstalled it, uninstalled IE8, tried a system restore, tried the Windows Installer CleanUp wizard (A great starting point for solving a lot of problems with your PC) and one day about a month after having given up Flash suddenly started to work for no reason :mark: Are you using IE8 by any chance?

If it's the same problem as I had I'll be honest and say I'd just backup your files and reinstall Vista as it's a lot easier that way......

As for disabling UAC in Vista which is the thing which is annoying you try this -> http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/disable-user-account-control-uac-the-easy-way-on-windows-vista/

All the cool kids disable UAC and it makes using Vista a far more pleasurable experience :)

[Dave B]

No viruses just Flash being a PoS. Adobe are famous for not fixing issues with flash and with Acrobat.
Acrobat is evil, barely a day goes by when it doesn't want to update itself. Uninstall Acrobat and use the far sleeker Foxit reader (http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/reader/), your life will be so much better.

[Daniel]

What amazes me about adobe is that they STILL don't have flash out in 64 bit. They really are annoying. Acrobat requires way too much power as well and untill dual core processors and 2gb's of ram became common it was common to see pc's brought to their knees by nothing more than a pdf

As far as I know, Flashplayer can only be set to auto notify of any updates, it should never auto install any updates.

[Daniel]

That's what Dave was saying :)

[Valve Bounce]

Cool, doing a scan now but so far hasn't come up with anything other than tracking cookies (which seem to be an endless irritation :S )

Can't remember actually installing anything myself except from the Adobe site but with Vista I've got so fed up with the constant requests that I pretty much click OK for anything.

My sister-in-law saw "XP anti-virus update" or something close flash across her screen so she clicked on it and it truned out o be a trojan. Now her PC won't work.

Better not dowload anything unles you know what it is. I have been trying to ask Daniel if I should install Sophos rootkit, but he won't answer me. :(

[Daniel]

Got the PM while I was asleep. Sophos stuff is fine

[Valve Bounce]

Thanks

[ChrisS]

My sister-in-law saw "XP anti-virus update" or something close flash across her screen so she clicked on it and it truned out o be a trojan. Now her PC won't work.

Better not dowload anything unles you know what it is. I have been trying to ask Daniel if I should install Sophos rootkit, but he won't answer me. :(

I come across a lot of people that installed some version of this trojan best/easiest solution IMHO is an OS re-installation.

These rogue software are quite impressive actually. They are named in such way that they sound similar to actual software (MS Antivirus, Antivirus XP, Antivirus 360 etc). People panic by the false positives they show and install the "antivirus"

They even block access to antivirus websites and prevent real antivirus software from installing

[Daniel]

I come across a lot of people that installed some version of this trojan best/easiest solution IMHO is an OS re-installation.

These rogue software are quite impressive actually. They are named in such way that they sound similar to actual software (MS Antivirus, Antivirus XP, Antivirus 360 etc). People panic by the false positives they show and install the "antivirus"

They even block access to antivirus websites and prevent real antivirus software from installing

I personally don't install AV programs because I feel they just slow your PC down and that being conscious of what files you download and what sites you visit is the best form of defence. Of course this approach isn't for everybody but if you do things right you don't need an Anti-Virus program running.

[ChrisS]

Security suites are the worst, they mess up and slow down everything. if you are careful how you use your PC you can manage without AV just fine and a clean OS install every while will keep everything working fine.

[Valve Bounce]

I personally don't install AV programs because I feel they just slow your PC down and that being conscious of what files you download and what sites you visit is the best form of defence. Of course this approach isn't for everybody but if you do things right you don't need an Anti-Virus program running.

I forgot to mention that she got the trojan by simply reading the paper online (about Fritzl, of all things) and came across this damn warning telling her to update her anti-virus; so she just clicked on it. Actually, I have also come across this sort of stuff being sent to my e-mail address, as well as to send in my bank account and password among other things. The latter, I simply forwarded to the bank for their action.

Being computer savvy is one thing, but most people using computers are not. My wife receives a helluva lot of junk mail type attachments, either they are cute or they are those dreadful chain letters, and she knows not to open them. Most people will, unfortunately.

[Wade91]

I personally don't install AV programs because I feel they just slow your PC down and that being conscious of what files you download and what sites you visit is the best form of defence. Of course this approach isn't for everybody but if you do things right you don't need an Anti-Virus program running.
you may be right about it hurting performance a bit, but at times its been hard to keep viruses off my computer even WITH my anti-virus program, and its always blocking viruses and stuff from my computer so........

[Wade91]

I forgot to mention that she got the trojan by simply reading the paper online (about Fritzl, of all things) and came across this damn warning telling her to update her anti-virus; so she just clicked on it. Actually, I have also come across this sort of stuff being sent to my e-mail address, as well as to send in my bank account and password among other things. The latter, I simply forwarded to the bank for their action.

Being computer savvy is one thing, but most people using computers are not. My wife receives a helluva lot of junk mail type attachments, either they are cute or they are those dreadful chain letters, and she knows not to open them. Most people will, unfortunately.
yeah, whenever my computer has a virus like it has been recently, i always get alot of pop-up ads, and quite a few of them have said something like my computer is infected with viruses and stuff, and that i need to download something to get rid of them, but i've never done it, i've always just fought the viruses with norton or McAfee, i may use AVG next year though

[Valve Bounce]

yeah, whenever my computer has a virus like it has been recently, i always get alot of pop-up ads, and quite a few of them have said something like my computer is infected with viruses and stuff, and that i need to download something to get rid of them, but i've never done it, i've always just fought the viruses with norton or McAfee, i may use AVG next year though

I am far from an expert on this, but it wouldn't hurt for you to have some spyware like Ad Aware from Lavasoft installed. It's free. Yahoo also provide a good spyware free.

[Daniel]

you may be right about it hurting performance a bit, but at times its been hard to keep viruses off my computer even WITH my anti-virus program, and its always blocking viruses and stuff from my computer so........
You've got to ask why you're getting viruses first. Are you visiting dodgey sites? Are you downloading stuff through P2P and getting infected files? Is your OS patched? Have you got a firewall? My first and last virus was back in 2001 with Windows 98 and it was my mistake for installing a file from someone on MSN when it was obviously a virus :mark:

[Wade91]

You've got to ask why you're getting viruses first. Are you visiting dodgey sites? Are you downloading stuff through P2P and getting infected files? Is your OS patched? Have you got a firewall? My first and last virus was back in 2001 with Windows 98 and it was my mistake for installing a file from someone on MSN when it was obviously a virus :mark:
i got a virus from a download last mounth, but i have worse viruses right now, and i have no idea where it came from :confused:

[Mark]

Acrobat is evil, barely a day goes by when it doesn't want to update itself. Uninstall Acrobat and use the far sleeker Foxit reader (http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/reader/), your life will be so much better.

On linux there are various readers that do an excellent job with pdf's. Evince is one. When I used to use Windows Acrobat caused no end of problems. It would regularly crash the machine, and flash when left open for too long would crash the machine too!

Still can't get flash working on this machine, because it's 64-bit.

[Daniel]

i got a virus from a download last mounth, but i have worse viruses right now, and i have no idea where it came from :confused:
You need to find out why you're getting viruses and then stop doing whatever it is that you're doing. Don't mean to sound blunt but viruses don't invite themselves onto your PC and have a party without you doing something.

[Daniel]

On linux there are various readers that do an excellent job with pdf's. Evince is one. When I used to use Windows Acrobat caused no end of problems. It would regularly crash the machine, and flash when left open for too long would crash the machine too!

Still can't get flash working on this machine, because it's 64-bit.

Silly :p I have Vista 64 and I can run flash on my 32 bit browser :p

[Mark]

I often read about 'get the 32-bit' browser. But I can't find it :s

[ChrisS]

I often read about 'get the 32-bit' browser. But I can't find it :s

Did you look in the program Files (x86) folder? I believe 32 bit IE7 is installed in there by default.

[Daniel]

Did you look in the program Files (x86) folder? I believe 32 bit IE7 is installed in there by default.
He's one of those Linux retards :p

[Mark]

Did you look in the program Files (x86) folder? I believe 32 bit IE7 is installed in there by default.

Where do I find the program files folder on Ubuntu Linux? :p

[MrJan]

You lot really are making this stuff up aren't you? Those aren't real words :p :