Adobe Flash Player
Adobe Flash Player no longer distributed by openSUSE
Adobe Flash Player has been dropped from both Leap 42.1 and Tumbleweed.
Reason
- Adobe allows bundling Adobe Flash Player only under very specific requirements
- openSUSE can no longer comply with these requirements as seen by the SUSE lawyers
How to still get Adobe Flash Player
1-click install
By pressing this image, you will install flash-player package from PackMan repository:
Installation from Adobe repository
Adobe is providing an RPM repository which is compatible with openSUSE and SUSE Linux Enterprise.
To enable this repository on your system, in a terminal, run (you will be prompted for root password):
sudo zypper ar --check --refresh http://linuxdownload.adobe.com/linux/x86_64/ adobe
This adds the repository. Now use
sudo zypper se -s -r adobe
to see the packages provided by this repo. There are two packages: the flash plugin itself and a package named adobe-release-x86_64. It is recommended that you first install this additional package and add the repo's key then:
sudo zypper in adobe-release-x86_64 sudo rpm --import /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-adobe-linux
Then, to install Adobe Flash Player rpm package, run:
sudo zypper in flash-plugin
You'll need to restart Mozilla Firefox browser to make it detect Flash plugin.
Manual installation from the browser
Get it directly from Adobe: http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/otherversions/
When using the Mozilla Firefox browser, on the left hand droplist select the rpm version, then click on the "download now" button. When the download finishes, Firefox may ask what to do with it: Select install with package manager. If it does not ask, click on the download list, then on the rpm file just downloaded. You should get a prompt for the root password, then YaST package manager should start, and propose to install the rpm. Once rpm is installed, restart Firefox.
Automatic installation from the browser
Some web pages that need Flash will tell that Adobe Flash Player is missing or outdated, and suggest to install it. For instance, this one: http://www.atresplayer.com/directos/television/lasexta/. Clicking on "update", goes to https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/plugincheck/?utm_source=firefox-browser&utm_medium=firefox-browser&utm_campaign=plugincheck-update, which gives information about the current plugin, and another "update" button, which now goes to https://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/. The rest of the procedure is the same as the "manual install" explained above.
Cleanup of older versions
When installing Adobe Flash Player from Adobe as described above, an already installed version of the Adobe Flash Player (e.g. from openSUSE) may not be automatically obsoleted and removed.
To remove an installed Adobe Flash Player manually, do it like this (as 'root'):
- Find installed rpm packages that match "flash" (ignore case)
- Manually remove rpm packages
For example:
root@host# rpm -qa | grep -i flash flash-plugin-11.2.202.540-release.x86_64 flash-player-gnome-11.2.202.508-1.2.x86_64 flash-player-11.2.202.508-1.2.x86_64 root@host# rpm --erase flash-player flash-player-gnome
Caveats
Adobe has announced that Flash will be discontinued altogether at the end of 2020.
Security Warning
Adobe Flash Player has been insecure since the beginning of time and presumably will be insecure until the end of time.
Adobe Flash Player is non-free proprietary binary-only software from Adobe so that there is nothing that openSUSE could do regarding any issue.
Recommendation
Try to avoid using Adobe Flash Player as far as possible.
Alternatives
Use Google Chrome (a freeware web browser developed by Google). Chrome has a built-in version of the Adobe Flash Player, called Pepper Flash Player (cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Chrome). Furthermore Chrome gets automatic updates from Google. It is worth noting however, that Google Chrome is proprietary software just like Adobe Flash Player which is also known to not respect your privacy. Using Chromium, the "free as in freedom" version of Chrome might be a better option.