Triona's Tech Tips

The latest version of Mozilla Firefox 3.5 (3.5.3) includes an important new feature. It checks to see if you have old, unsafe versions of Flash, a plug-in used to view multimedia content.

Old versions of Flash are problematic because they can be used to infect your computer with viruses and other malware. It’s not always easy to tell which version you’re running, and Flash often goes under the radar screen because it’s a plug-in, not a program you run directly by clicking an icon.

Mozilla reports that 99% of Firefox users have Flash. Of the six million users who upgraded Firefox after last week’s upgrade, half of them had unsafe versions of Flash.

Firefox can’t run the Flash upgrade for you; you have to do it yourself by clicking the link to visit the Adobe site. When I visited, Adobe tried to lump some free McAfee antivirus software with the Flash upgrade; you can de-select that. You may need to approve the Adobe Download Manager (look for the yellow bar at the top of your Firefox window). Once Download Manager completes, Firefox needs to restart. A new window will appear, downloading the latest version of Flash. Finally, close Adobe Download Manager by clicking the orange button. (With all these steps, is it any wonder people don’t upgrade Flash more often?)

While the new version of Firefox 3.0 (3.0.14) also includes this Flash check, I encourage you to upgrade to 3.5.3 for greatest security.

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