Why is Flash a problem with browsers?

[Richard Fangnail]

Why does Flash cause Firefox or IE to crash so often?

Very many webpages have flash banners - do they crash the browser
because they use too much memory? Or because they are written the
wrong way?

Is it only a prob if 2+ webpages have Flash at the same time?

It got bad for me the past few weeks so I installed FlashBlock which
is working very well. One page that gave me a problem was
wunderground.com, an ordinary weather site with some flash.

Another thing is, why does a certain page work okay 10 times and then
it will crash? Why doesn't a page crash every time?

 

[Jose]

Why does Flash cause Firefox or IE to crash so often?

Very many webpages have flash banners - do they crash the browser
because they use too much memory?  Or because they are written the
wrong way?

Is it only a prob if 2+ webpages have Flash at the same time?

It got bad for me the past few weeks so I installed FlashBlock which
is working very well.  One page that gave me a problem was
wunderground.com, an ordinary weather site with some flash.

Another thing is, why does a certain page work okay 10 times and then
it will crash?  Why doesn't a page crash every time?

What is your definition of crash?

How do you recover from the crash?

What are your XP and browser versions/service packs?

I tried wunderground with IE, Firefox and Google Chrome and don't see
a problem, but it must be something I am not doing right.

Can you better describe your problem so I can try it here?

Is your problem repeatable (happens every time)?

 

[Richard Fangnail]

What is your definition of crash?

How do you recover from the crash?

A crash is when Firefox suddenly disappears, and it gives you a dialog
box for Crash Report.

What are your XP and browser versions/service packs?

I tried wunderground with IE, Firefox and Google Chrome and don't see
a problem, but it must be something I am not doing right.

Can you better describe your problem so I can try it here?

Is your problem repeatable (happens every time)?

The crash reports said something about a Flash file. Plus I read many
other complaints about how Flash was crashing FF so people installed
Flashblock and it stopped the crashes.

No, the crash didn't happen every time, which was confusing.

 

[Jose]

A crash is when Firefox suddenly disappears, and it gives you a dialog
box for Crash Report.





The crash reports said something about a Flash file.  Plus I read many
other complaints about how Flash was crashing FF so people installed
Flashblock and it stopped the crashes.

No, the crash didn't happen every time, which was confusing.

Intermittent problems are hard to pin down, and since you didn't say
what versions of anything you are running I will just assume you are
running exactly the same versions of everything I am here.

If you think you are having an Adobe Flash or Adobe Shockwave problem
check to see if you have the latest by going here:

http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/welcome/

If you need an update, it will tell you and it will also display the
latest version. In Firefox, you can see this by clicking Tools, Add-
ons, perhaps before and after you visit the site. If a new version is
installed, restart your browser.

If you update, you should check your IE version as well.

 

[VanguardLH]

Why does Flash cause Firefox or IE to crash so often?

Very many webpages have flash banners - do they crash the browser
because they use too much memory? Or because they are written the
wrong way?

Is it only a prob if 2+ webpages have Flash at the same time?

It got bad for me the past few weeks so I installed FlashBlock which
is working very well. One page that gave me a problem was
wunderground.com, an ordinary weather site with some flash.

Another thing is, why does a certain page work okay 10 times and then
it will crash? Why doesn't a page crash every time?

Something circular in your reasoning. You INSTALL the Flash control in
both IE and Firefox. You then INSTALL a 3rd party add-on or extension
in the web browser to block the use of the Flash control. Um, so why
not just never install the Flash control in the first place?

Neither IE or FF come with Flash pre-installed. YOU had to install
Flash (and, in the case of FF, had to install a 3rd party extension that
permits supports for ActiveX which FF does not provide support). Why
install something that you are always going to block?

 

[Richard Fangnail]

Something circular in your reasoning.  You INSTALL the Flash control in
both IE and Firefox.  You then INSTALL a 3rd party add-on or extension
in the web browser to block the use of the Flash control.  Um, so why
not just never install the Flash control in the first place?

Neither IE or FF come with Flash pre-installed.  YOU had to install
Flash (and, in the case of FF, had to install a 3rd party extension that
permits supports for ActiveX which FF does not provide support).  Why
install something that you are always going to block?

Because FlashBlock allows you to run the Flash objects if you want to,
and also set up a "whitelist" of sites that should not be blocked.

 

[VanguardLH]

Because FlashBlock allows you to run the Flash objects if you want to,
and also set up a "whitelist" of sites that should not be blocked.

Okay, that makes sense. It sounded like you were installing Flash and
then blocking (it all).

I've had add-ons to IE7 in the past, like IE7Pro and PopUpCop (but not
compatible with IE8) that also let me block Flash content but it left a
colored box as a placeholder where I could then click on it if I wanted
to see the Flash content or, as you mention, use a whitelist to allow
Flash at those sites. I'll have to wait until those add-ons gets
updated to be compatible with IE8. However, I found so many web sites
that use Flash to protect their content from web crawlers that I ended
up re-enabling Flash than where I wanted it disabled.

I haven't experienced the pervasive crashes due to the Flash AX control
in IE that you mention for your experience. I've had over 50 concurrent
tabs open to different web sites where probably two dozen, or more, of
those sites had Flash content. To troubleshoot if I had your problem
with lots of crashes, I would first start by disabling all non-Microsoft
add-ons in IE and retest to see if I encountered all those crashes while
concurrently visiting Flash-laden web sites. If the crashes still
continued then I'd also disable the Microsoft add-ons and retest. If
the crashes continued, I would disable all my security software
(anti-virus, anti-malware, HIPS, firewall, etc) and retest. If still
crashed, reboot into Windows' Safe Mode and retest.

However, before I began all that testing, I would make sure that I had a
good install of the Flash ActiveX control for IE. Below are some tips.

- Get the uninstaller (http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/141/tn_14157.html) to
completely remove any remnants of their Flash AX control.
- Disable all [non-Microsoft] add-ons. I usually only disable the
non-Microsoft add-ons. You could disable all add-ons during the
reinstall to ensure that none of them is causing a conflict or
involved in the install problem.
- Install the Flash Player; however, if you had problems with the
on-demand installation from within IE, download the installer
(http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/142/tn_14266.html).
- The Flash Player should now be the only [non-Microsoft] add-on that
is enabled.
- Test if Flash now works. If Flash works, re-enable the other
add-ons one at a time and retest.

For future reference, it is best to first uninstall all non-Microsoft
add-ons and reset IE7 before installing IE8. After completing the
installation of IE8 then reinstall the non-Microsoft add-ons.

Adobe's Flash Player is not compatible with the 64-bit version of IE.
Use the 32-bit version of IE. Apparently Flash installs into the
wrong folder in a 64-bit version of Windows so it might not even be
available to the 32-bit version of IE. See the following articles:

http://preview.tinyurl.com/cwynrg

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashplayer10/faq.html#flashplayer10FAQ_64-bit01
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashplayer10/faq.html#flashplayer10FAQ_64-bit04

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/000/6b3af6c9.html