Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

SecurityWeekSecurityWeek

Vulnerabilities

Firefox 69 to Disable Adobe Flash by Default

Mozilla will soon disable Adobe Flash by default in Firefox, the first step toward completely removing support for the plugin in the browser. 

The change will be initially made in Firefox 69 Nightly, and will then get through the entire release cycle, the Internet organization says. 

Mozilla will soon disable Adobe Flash by default in Firefox, the first step toward completely removing support for the plugin in the browser. 

The change will be initially made in Firefox 69 Nightly, and will then get through the entire release cycle, the Internet organization says. 

“We are now scheduled to completely disable Flash in Firefox 69 which moves to the Stable release on August 3rd,” Mozilla notes on the browser’s roadmap page

In July 2017, Adobe announced plans to completely kill Flash and stop providing security updates for it by the end of 2020. 

The company’s decision was motivated by the large number of Critical vulnerabilities found in the plugin over the past several years, including flaws that were being actively exploited in malicious attacks

Companies such as Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Mozilla fully backed Adobe’s decision to end Flash, and support for the plugin has been gradually deprecated from numerous popular products.

With the release of Firefox 55 in August 2017, Mozilla made Flash click-to-activate by default, requiring users to select which sites they wanted to activate the plugin on. 

Now, the company is ready to move forth with the deprecation of support for Flash, and wants to disable it by default before the end of the year. 

Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.

Early next year, Flash support will be completely removed from consumer versions of Firefox, though it will remain in the Firefox Extended Support Release (ESR) until the end of 2020. 

“When Adobe stops shipping security updates for Flash at the end of 2020, Firefox will refuse to load the plugin,” Mozilla notes on the Firefox plugins roadmap

While Flash continues to be used in numerous applications and websites, developers and content creators are encouraged to migrate from Flash to open standards such as HTML5, WebGL and WebAssembly, which are already supported by all major web browsers.

Related: Senator Urges Federal Agencies to Ditch Adobe Flash

Related: Adobe Patches Flash Zero-Day Exploited in Targeted Attacks

Related: Firefox Makes Adobe Flash Click-to-Activate by Default

Written By

Ionut Arghire is an international correspondent for SecurityWeek.

Click to comment

Trending

Daily Briefing Newsletter

Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing to stay informed on the latest threats, trends, and technology, along with insightful columns from industry experts.

Join the session as we discuss the challenges and best practices for cybersecurity leaders managing cloud identities.

Register

SecurityWeek’s Ransomware Resilience and Recovery Summit helps businesses to plan, prepare, and recover from a ransomware incident.

Register

Expert Insights

Related Content

Vulnerabilities

Less than a week after announcing that it would suspended service indefinitely due to a conflict with an (at the time) unnamed security researcher...

Data Breaches

OpenAI has confirmed a ChatGPT data breach on the same day a security firm reported seeing the use of a component affected by an...

IoT Security

A group of seven security researchers have discovered numerous vulnerabilities in vehicles from 16 car makers, including bugs that allowed them to control car...

Vulnerabilities

A researcher at IOActive discovered that home security systems from SimpliSafe are plagued by a vulnerability that allows tech savvy burglars to remotely disable...

Risk Management

The supply chain threat is directly linked to attack surface management, but the supply chain must be known and understood before it can be...

Cybercrime

Patch Tuesday: Microsoft calls attention to a series of zero-day remote code execution attacks hitting its Office productivity suite.

Vulnerabilities

Patch Tuesday: Microsoft warns vulnerability (CVE-2023-23397) could lead to exploitation before an email is viewed in the Preview Pane.

Vulnerabilities

The latest Chrome update brings patches for eight vulnerabilities, including seven reported by external researchers.