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.