Adobe Flash ESR to be Enterprise only soon.

[Octopuss]

What do they intend to achieve with this? Have more people install the thing with the bundled crapware via the web installer?

[half-moon]

Adobe has kicked the date ahead to March 1st. See also their FAQ.

It doesn't really matter, as I would expect somebody to start uploading offline copies to TPB or KAT.

[alex04]

is there any special reason why you need ESR version of flash?

you can dl flash from here also https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb ... ndows.html

[half-moon]

is there any special reason why you need ESR version of flash?

It's more stable and is generally recommended by many users here.

[satrow]

It looks like there might be an extension until after the June release, there's now a second page to download the ESR:

https://www.adobe.com/products/flashpla ... tion3.html will be decommissioned on March 1st, 2016.

https://www.adobe.com/products/flashpla ... tion4.html will be decommissioned on June 15th, 2016.

Both of the pages will still be available after the decommissioning date, but will not contain any links to Flash Player downloads. The pages will have detailed instructions on how to reach the new download page.

[Sob__]

you can dl flash from here also https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb ... ndows.html

Great link! Looks like I might not have to download Flash from unverified third-party sources nor use Adobe's crapware installer in the future.

It's not an ESR, but the files at the end in "Still having problems?" section are the same latest ones as available from soon to be decomissioned page. Well, they're not exactly byte-identical, but it's just different digital signature, for some reason one file is signed 9 seconds after the other. Now just hope the links will stay.

[satrow]

It looks like there might be an extension until after the June release, there's now a second page to download the ESR:

https://www.adobe.com/products/flashpla ... tion3.html will be decommissioned on March 1st, 2016.

https://www.adobe.com/products/flashpla ... tion4.html will be decommissioned on June 15th, 2016.

Both of the pages will still be available after the decommissioning date, but will not contain any links to Flash Player downloads. The pages will have detailed instructions on how to reach the new download page.

Adobe lied, the 'new' page now redirects to the application page for distributing Flash.

New Flash update today, good news: ESR version remains the same

[ron_1]

A new version of Flash ESR (18.0.0.343) has been out for the last 5 days apparently. I don't know about anyone else, but because of the way Adobe is doing things now, I missed it until today. You can still download the .exe installer via the direct download link.

[coffeebreak]

The decommissioning date for Distribution 3 was updated:

This page and the download links will be decommissioned on June 30, 2016.

and as of this time of posting, Distribution 4 (with download links) is publically accessible again, though not clear for how long.

Also, FAQ concerning these changes (not updated since March 8):

https://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/distribution3.html will be decommissioned on or around March, 2016.
https://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/distribution4.html will be decommissioned on or around June, 2016.

Both of the pages will still be available after the decommissioning date, but will not contain any links to Flash Player downloads.

[coffeebreak]

Distribution 4 once again is not publically accessible and redirects to the licensing application page.

The FAQ concerning Flash Player Distribution Changes got updated on June 02 with these dates:

https://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/distribution3.html will be decommissioned on or around June, 30th 2016.
https://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/distribution4.html will be decommissioned on or around March, 2017.

Both of the pages will still be available after the decommissioning date, but will not contain any links to Flash Player downloads.

[coffeebreak]

Adobe has announced an End-of-Life date for the ESR release branch of Flash Player, effective Oct 11, 2016. The announcement is posted on Distribution 3 (but to my knowledge, is posted nowhere else):

Extended Support Release - Flash Player 18.0.0.366 (Win & Mac)

ATTENTION: Important Changes to Extended Support Release
The Extended Support Release was originally created to help minimize the time IT administrators spend certifying a new Flash Player release, by restricting the number of changes introduced in a given release to only security changes and critical functional fixes. At the time, functional changes far outweighed the number of security fixes included with each release of Flash Player. In the modern security landscape; however, the opposite is true and the combination of proactive and responsive security mitigations far outweigh functional changes. In practice, the ESR no longer insulates IT organizations from the vast majority of changes included in the standard Flash Player release, providing little relief in terms of reduced functional risk. As a result, we have decided to discontinue the ESR branch and instead focus solely on the standard release. Focusing on the standard release allows us to be more agile in response scenarios, and to focus more deeply on both testing and new security engineering efforts moving forward.

To permit organizations sufficient time for testing and certification, the ESR will be maintained and updated until October 11, 2016, after which point organizations will need to transition to the standard release.

There is not yet a corresponding notice on their ESR FAQ, which was last updated Sept 22, 2015.

Guess I can't pretend to be surprised. :-/

[Octopuss]

Every single time the countdown gets close to zero, they magically extend the deadline...

[coffeebreak]

Octopuss, I just edited my earlier post to remove ambiguity. It's true, they do keep pushing the deadline ahead (for decommissioning the page), but this is more than that. Effective Oct 11, 2016 Adobe is ending the ESR branch of Flash Player. Period. It won't exist for Enterprise either, according to their announcement.

[Octopuss]

Well, hopefully we won't need Flash Player anymore some time in future.

[coffeebreak]

For those use the ESR version of Flash Player:
There has been one more update to the ESR branch: to v18.0.0.382 (see APSB16-32).

It can be downloaded as an individual full (offline) installer from Adobe's ESR FAQ page: https://forums.adobe.com/thread/889580

or as a zipped archive containing all OS flavors plus debuggers from Adobe's FP archive: https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/archived-flash-player-versions.html (Scroll down the page to "Release and Content Debugger Archives")

[coffeebreak]

Correction to my post above: "containing all OS flavors plus debuggers..." What I meant to say was: "containing all installers for the various browsers (for both Windows and Mac) plus debuggers..."