Adobe claims they don't ship Flash with known crash bugs, user proves they do

Filed under: News, Adobe, Apple, Freeware, Beta, Web

Apple's recent iPad product announcement fanned the flames of the Flash debate, namely whether it belongs on Apple's mobile devices -- or not. Since the release of the iPhone Apple has been staunchly against putting Flash on its mobile devices, citing performance and stability issues. In fact at an Apple Town Hall meeting just over a week ago, Steve Jobs said, "When a Mac crashes more often than not it's because of Flash." It doesn't get much more blunt than that.

Adobe, of course, is crying foul, and their chief technology officer Kevin Lynch responded by making the grandiose statement that "Regarding crashing, I can tell you that we don't ship Flash with any known crash bugs, and if there was such a widespread problem historically Flash could not have achieved its wide use today."

Unfortunately, Matthew Dempsky begs to differ, and he can prove it. Before you click that link, you should know that unless you are running the very latest beta version of Flash, it will crash either the Flash plugin, or your entire browser, depending on what browser you are using. The thing is, Dempsky found this crashing bug in September of 2008 and reported it to Adobe then, and the bug has continued to exist in every version of Flash on every platform since.

Lynch's comment is what you'd expect any CTO to say publicly; realistically, what else could he say? It's just very unfortunate for him that someone was able to prove the inaccuracy of his statement in a very compelling way.

If you're tired of Flash giving you troubles, check out the various solutions we've presented by searching Download Squad for "flash block" or "disable flash".

[Update] Adobe has now acknowledged Dempsky's bug report, and has offered an explanation for why it has taken so long to fix it. The explanation is reasonable, but likely won't do anything to dampen the rising level of distaste for Flash that is becoming evident in the online community.

Share

Adobe claims they don't ship Flash with known crash bugs, user proves they do originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 08 Feb 2010 08:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments