adobe-flash It has been one of the most famous add-ons in the history of the Internet. Although it pains us to admit it, web pages are as we know them today, in part, thanks to him. However, standards and programming languages evolved so much that Flash was eventually rendered obsolete. And not only that, but also as a hook for hackers to attack users. In January 2021, this complement definitely passed away. But there are still websites that ask us to install it. What is going on with them?
Years ago, the Adobe plugin was essential to play multimedia content, such as videos and music, from the browser. Large platforms, such as YouTube or the Spotify web player, used it in the beginning until the arrival of HTML5. The same thing happened with the popular “flash games“, those games that made us spend hours in front of the browser. However, relying on this plugin not only cost developers money due to royalities, but also made websites take up much more space and have serious performance issues.
Therefore, although decades have passed since then, many users are still used to a website asking them to install and activate Flash. And the pirates are aware of it.
Beware of websites that ask us to install Flash
Nowadays, none of the most visited websites in the world is going to ask us to install and activate this plugin, since they have been without it for a long time. But this plugin has been over a year without receiving a single update. And it is well known that there are very powerful exploits capable of knocking out the security of our computer. Therefore, pirates keep trying to convince us to enable it.
The most frequent thing is that we come across this type of threat by following links on social networks, such as Facebook, or through SPAM emails that can end up in our inbox. That is why we must make sure we are clear about one thing: Flash is no more. Adobe itself ended support and development of the plug-in, and even removed it from its website so users couldn’t download it. All web browsers have removed their own plugins, and even block all this content out of the box from loading.
Therefore, if something is trying to get us to download it and activate it, it will 100% be a trap. And we must escape from it as soon as possible.