Suggestion regarding addons,

[UCyborg]

Well, when was the last time official version got anything important? True, I don't find any official documentation of the changes in this version.

Still, this is not the first time someone would take something for Chinese market and clean it up. I've seen it with web browsers, typical Chinese targeted web browser opens dozens of connections on start and the hacked version does not.

Hm, the old official standalone Flash Player 32.0.0.465 EXE is bigger, this new one is smaller, specifically and most notably, .text section is smaller by about 3,6 MB. Might have to do with video playback removal for Windows XP that is mentioned on darktohka's GitHub.

[Moonchild]

Still, this is not the first time someone would take something for Chinese market and clean it up.

The thing is, the sources in the repos pointed to only relate to the custom installer, not to the Flash binaries themselves. If a browser is Open Source then yes you can clean it up, but not so in this case. It's still Adobe's "black box" and who knows what all has been added to it that collects data and calls home. There's nothing to inspect that actually patches the flash player binaries to clean them of the problematic code as far as I can see...

[suzyne]

I strongly advise NOT to use the mainland-China-only version of Flash Player.

So my understanding is that the download here: https://gitlab.com/cleanflash/installer has been "cleaned up" to remove any data collection.

But if the only reason for the Flash Player updates, has been to keep the data collection up-to-date, then there's no point in getting the player for the China region that has been "cleaned".

I have to say when I was reading the links to the two sites , I found it a little confusing, and it would have been good to see a list of the changes in the player.

You are receiving no other benefits from "bigger version number better" feelings, here.

Irrational maybe, but I get the appeal! Because maybe, just maybe, there are some bug fixes slipped in that aren't documented?

[moonbat]

Just get the last working version sans timebomb (32.0.0.371) from here.

[Moonchild]

Just get the last working version sans timebomb (32.0.0.371) from here.

I second this.

[suzyne]

Or if using Windows, this page has a slightly newer version:

https://web.archive.org/web/20210112063313/http:/fpdownload.adobe.com/get/flashplayer/pdc/32.0.0.465/install_flash_player.exe

That link is recommended on this page https://github.com/darktohka/FlashPatch (I didn't find it myself) and I don't know if it is just an example of "bigger version number better" syndrome?

[Moonchild]

The problem is that .465 is time-bombed (Adobe sabotaged it) and does not work without first patching out the time-bomb. There are only minor differences between 371 and 465 otherwise, and I would always trust the version that doesn't have deliberate sabotage in it more (no telling what else has been put in).

[suzyne]

The problem is that .465 is time-bombed (Adobe sabotaged it) and does not work without first patching out the time-bomb.

Didn't know that!

[UCyborg]

I must have been one of the first people who wrote about extending the time bomb.

[frostknight]

"maintaining" a special version just means keeping their private data collection updated. You are receiving no other benefits from "bigger version number better" feelings, here.

Funny thing, Hyperbola devs feel that way about a lot of sofrware. The bigger number version = better, being a dumb thing to follow.

Albeit, they would ignore flash as a concept, due to being proprietary. But still, you aren't the only one it seems who noticed this about higher version number being better feelings. You are likely right about this.

[Mæstro]

Speaking from my academic background, big number arms races are pathetic. Nobody has ever even released Carcera Bloatware vω, let alone a truly big number.
Now that Flash for Linux is fixed*, the time is more ripe now than ever to revive Gnash or otherwise engineer an open-source Flash clone that works as NPAPI, akin to ReactOS. Surely, much of the progress Ruffle has made could be applied to this hypothetical, revived Gnash. The only argument against it is that we are the only possible audience for it, and none of us are quite so picky about licences.
*It is better to look on the end of updates not as the end of software’s life, but the software adopting its final, permanent form.

[craniumcadoo]

I find it annoying that the sites keep forcing their emulators. Did Ruffle ever work in Pale Moon?

https://www.y8.com/

This site forces it, doesn't work in Pale Moon. Works in Firefox without any extension. This site used to serve Flash content normally so it could be loaded by the plugin. No more.

That site seems to fail before Ruffle even tries to load due to some scripting issue: `ReferenceError: assignment to undeclared variable event` appears on https://www.y8.com/games/dress_up_poland. A wget of that page confirms it uses the unpkg CDN with the Ruffle polyfill, and ever since https://github.com/ruffle-rs/ruffle/pull/11407 Ruffle is not used on Flash-enabled browsers when the website owner uses the polyfill, so it would work on Pale Moon if that were fixed. I would encourage any website administrator not to use the Ruffle API when the polyfill will suffice unless they're supporting a use-case Adobe Flash Player cannot support, such as in-browser AIR, which Ruffle has started to implement, as with the Ruffle API Ruffle will unconditionally be used.

As an example, a website I maintain, https://www.dnai.org/, does the same with the unpkg CDN and a Ruffle polyfill of an embed, and if you right-click the animation on Pale Moon with Flash you'll see it's using Flash, but if you right-click it on any other browser or Pale Moon without Flash, you'll see it's using Ruffle.

[craniumcadoo]

I find it annoying that the sites keep forcing their emulators. Did Ruffle ever work in Pale Moon?

https://www.y8.com/

This site forces it, doesn't work in Pale Moon. Works in Firefox without any extension. This site used to serve Flash content normally so it could be loaded by the plugin. No more.

As for the error itself, it seems to be caused by this:

Code: Select all

        6115: function(e, t) {
            "use strict";
            ...
            var r = function() {
                return e = function e() {
                    ! function(e, t) {
                        if (!(e instanceof t)) throw new TypeError("Cannot call a class as a function")
                    }(this, e)
                }, ... {
                    key: "dispatchCustomEvent",
                    value: function() {
                        console.log("dispatching event preRollAdHidden"), event = new Event("preRollAdHidden"), document.dispatchEvent(event)
                    }
                }]) && i(e.prototype, t), n && i(e, n), Object.defineProperty(e, "prototype", {
                    writable: !1
                }), e;
                var e, t, n
            }();
            t.A = r
        },

Namely, the line `event = new Event("preRollAdHidden")` after `"use strict"`, which I guess Pale Moon does not allow but other browser do allow.

[craniumcadoo]

I find it annoying that the sites keep forcing their emulators. Did Ruffle ever work in Pale Moon?

https://www.y8.com/

This site forces it, doesn't work in Pale Moon. Works in Firefox without any extension. This site used to serve Flash content normally so it could be loaded by the plugin. No more.

I opened viewtopic.php?f=70&t=32582 and confirmed through that that this page works if setting the `dom.window.event.enabled` preference in about:config to `true` and restarting the browser.

[UCyborg]

Oh I have that pref on for my mobile phone service provider site, so I didn't notice the issue on y8.com.

Regarding Chinese Flash Player discussed earlier, I guess theory that they might be still security patching other code would be challenging to prove. Or if they really just keep maintaining the bad bits. But what do I know.

[Mæstro]

I wonder what browsers Chinese Flash users in 2025 are using, and which use cases are important enough for them that Adobe continues to maintain it for them. Are there Chinese forks of Firefox or other browsers in active use in China which had never got rid of NPAPI support?