How to uninstall Flash from your Mac

Flash has been a steaming pile of crap for a long time, and now it’s pile of crap that stinks even worse than it did before. BGR is reporting a major Flash vulnerability and the only way to protect yourself is to remove it entirely from your Mac.

I’ll show you how to remove Flash in this tip, but first here’s a snippet from BGR’s report:

…the company confirmed a major security vulnerability that affects all versions of Flash for Windows, Mac and Linux computers. You read that correctly… all versions. Adobe said it has been made aware that this vulnerability is being used by hackers to attack users, though it says the attacks are limited and targeted. Using the exploit, an attacker can crash a target PC or even take complete control of the computer.

And now for the fun part: The only way to effectively protect yourself against this serious security hole is to completely uninstall Flash Player from your machine.

…every version of Flash Player on Windows, Mac and Linux is affected. And until fixes are released by Adobe, the only way to protect your computer is to completely uninstall Flash. While known attacks that utilize this exploit indeed appear to be very targeted, there’s simply no way to tell if the security hole is being used more widely by hackers.

More at BGR

How to remove Flash from your Mac

Here’s how you can remove Flash from your Mac:

1. Download the Flash uninstaller for OS X versions 10.4 or 10.5, or for OS X version 10.6 or later.

3. Close all browser windows.

4. Run the Flash uninstaller to remove it from your Mac.

And that’s it, now your Mac is free of Flash and more secure. You might also notice an increase in web page loading speed without having Flash-based ads and other junk loading while you browse.

If you run into any problems or need more detailed instructions, see Adobe’s official instructions page for how to remove Flash from your Mac.

Good riddance to Flash!

I know that some folks might think they will miss Flash if they remove it from their Macs, but I can tell you that parting with it is pretty much painless. I got rid of it ages ago, and I haven’t missed it. It was nothing but a pain in the rear end when I had it on my Macs, and I’ll never install it again.

Steve Jobs was right years ago when he noted the problems with Flash, and nothing has changed since then. If anything Flash has gotten worse over the years, not better. And I can’t understand for the life of me why anybody would bother running it in the first place. It’s a buggy, insecure piece of trash so why bother to let it infest your Mac?

What some Mac users are saying about the Flash vulnerability

I was curious to know what some other Mac users were saying about the latest Flash vulnerability, so I dropped by the Mac subreddit. Here’s a sampling of the comments in a thread there:

Belchos: ”OK, what are the chances of the average casual Internet user (Reddit, local news, email, online news, Craig’s list, etc.) getting hacked through Flash? Is it worth unloading and trying to figure out something else?”

DNA128k: ”Yes. It’s worth it, Flash has been a time-bomb for a decade. Chrome has it built in and sandboxed, so just fire up Chrome if you NEED to use Flash.”

Didyouwoof: ”I don’t know, but when I decide whether to take precautions against a known risk of harm, I evaluate not just the odds of it happening, but the gravity of the harm in the event it does happen.

I’ve been a victim of identify theft before, and even though it was on a small scale, I never want to experience that again. So I’ve uninstalled Flash, and installed Google Chrome.”

Someoneyay: ”Whether its 1% or less, why risk it. I run Chrome when I use flash as well. And I BARELY need it!”

Ohcrapanotheruserid: ”I uninstalled it a while ago, never missed it. I thought it would break a lot of websites but tried it anyway since I didn’t trust it after all the bad press. Maybe once a month some ancient site won’t show a video but in general I say don’t miss flash.”

MarsSpaceship: ”Every time I read that flash is a piece of crap I remember watching Steve Jobs basically saying Apple would not incorporate Flash into the iPhone because it was a piece of crap.”

Livingcode: ”…and everyone said he was a stubborn idiot.”

RDSWES: ”I uninstalled in in 2010 and haven’t missed it a bit, but I have always avoided sites with flash like they have the plag”

More at Reddit

Most of the redditors seem to understand that Flash really isn’t worth having on your Mac. And some deleted it years ago, like me, and haven’t missed it at all. So if you’re on the fence about removing it, that should tell you all you need to know.

Good riddance to Flash, Steve Jobs was right again.

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