doc, it hurts when i do this...

[markslaw]

My computer was hanging, hard disk grinding, doing as much as possible while allowing me to do nothing! I finally figured out that the issue was flash running amok. Once I uninstalled it, everything returned to normal and I can finally get things done. The problem is, there are still legitimate uses for flash and gnash just doesn't seem to fill the void. Any suggestions? Is there something out there that will allow me to run flash content on the web and not take over the computer and freeze everything?

[SteveRiley]

When Adobe killed Flash for Linux, they answered the question for you: no. The binary that we can download is by now very old. It's mostly unmaintained except for occasional security fixes; these will cease at some point, too. I'm not really surprised that it's becoming more difficult to use the binary. Unfortunately, we don't have any good alternatives -- until Flash dies completely, of course.

[ronw]

This has been working for me.

# better flash
sudo apt-get purge adobe-flash-properties-kde adobe-flashplugin flashplugin-installer
rm -rfv ~/.macromedia ~/.adobe
sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:thad-fisch/freshplayerplugin
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install freshplayerplugin
sudo apt-get install pepperflashplugin-nonfree

[markslaw]

From today's rootlog entry:

10 May 2015

I had been banging my head against the wall about the computer hanging, hard drive churning and allowing me to do exactly nothing. I finally found that flash was the culprit here and went searching for an alternative that wouldn't hang the system. First, I tried gnash, didn't run the flash sites I wanted (foxnews, chief among them). Finally, I uploaded a note to kubuntuforums and someone suggested the following:

# better flash
sudo apt-get purge adobe-flash-properties-kde adobe-flashplugin flashplugin-installer
rm -rfv ~/.macromedia ~/.adobe
sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:thad-fisch/freshplayerplugin
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install freshplayerplugin
sudo apt-get install pepperflashplugin-nonfree

So far it seems to work. We'll see whether it hangs things up like flash did. For now, at least it works. We'll see...

thanks.

[SteveRiley]

I tried that for a while. But http://speedtest.net exhibited a problem: copy/paste of the results of a test didn't work. Makes me wonder if there's a general problem with the Pepper plugin and clipboard access.

[markslaw]

I don't want to jinx it, but it seems that the problem may finally be behind me. It unfolds something like this. A couple weeks ago, running top, I noticed that the process occupying the most of the CPUs' attention was flash. I tried uninstalling it and that seemed to work, but I couldn't do things that required flash (obviously!). Then I found a flash replacement and installed it. Okay, but was flash still running? Seemed to because it's embedded in Chrome. Turn it off. Okay, for now, but it still hangs. So far, so frustrating. Is there another browser that might not have these problems? How about Opera? Okay, flash is embedded here as well, but wait! How about making plugins ask before they run? Check that box and see what happens. Several hours later, when both Chrome and Firefox would have started churning away, Opera is still quiet and I can actually work on other things and listen to the streaming programs! Obviously, there are some remaining issues with Chrome and Firefox, because configuring Chrome the same way (or at least trying to), it still hangs after so long a time. Now if I can just figure out Opera's bookmarking scheme...

[SeijiSensei]

Firefox offers the "Ask to Activate" option for plugins as well. I have most things like Flash set to ask.

Another option is to install pipelight and have it use the latest version of Flash for Windows.

[markslaw]

As much as I like firefox, and like having the latest software available, the fact is that Opera seems to get it done without all the churning which couldn't possibly be good for my hard drives, anyway. It's been all day now, and not one instance of churning, freezing and/or stalling. If it ain't broke... One thing I'm starting to notice, and we'll see if this keeps up or is just conicidental, is that I'm hearing fewer and fewer ads start to scream at me when I'm trying to read a news story of foxnews.com or some other page. A brief look shows me "click here to play flash" where ads would normally be. This is good! A couple more clicks to play only what I want on a page, not a bad deal at all. I'll take it.