Flash blocked on Firefox by default due to security issues

Published July 14, 2015 3:35pm

Amid recent security issues hounding Adobe's Flash plugin, the software has been blocked in Mozilla's open-source browser Firefox.

Mozilla head of Firefox support announced the policy in a post on his Twitter account before noon Tuesday (PHL time).

BIG NEWS!! All versions of Flash are blocked by default in Firefox as of now. https://t.co/4SjVoqKPrR #tech #infosec pic.twitter.com/VRws3L0CBW

— Mark Schmidt (@MarkSchmidty) July 14, 2015

Mozilla's support page told Firefox users the Flash Player plugin 18.0.0.203 (click-to-play) was "blocked for your protection."

"When Mozilla becomes aware of add-ons, plugins, or other third-party software that seriously compromises Firefox security, stability, or performance and meets certain criteria, the software may be blocked from general use," it added (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/blocked/p946).

A report on The Verge said big Internet entities have slowly withdrawn support from Flash, many of them replacing it with HTML5.

While YouTube adopted such a policy, Google's Chrome browser intelligently pauses instances of Flash video on its pages.

"This latest wave of anti-Flash action might not kill it immediately, but it should at least mark the beginning of the end for the software," The Verge said. — Joel Locsin/TJD, GMA News

Tags: mozilla, mozillafirefox, adobe, adobeflash