My wife and I use createspace.com to self-publish books (her, mostly) and a couple days ago it started complaining that the version of Adobe Flash Player was too old. A link was supposed to install the latest version. Adobe of course, is relying on you to not notice that it is installing a "free trial" McAfee security application. This was not intrinsic to the subsequent problem, but soon she was getting popups from McAfee trying to get her to buy the product. Annoying, especially if you do not realize what Adobe had installed.
The real issue is that Chrome requires you to enable Flash Player through the lock icon to the right of the URL. This took me a while to figure out. Problem solved, but these sort of details drive her crazy! She is intelligent but computerphobic and problems like this are why.
My wealthy friends buy laptop computers from that computer/OS company that has big glassy stores in major metropolitan areas, replace with the latest model every 3 or 4 years, and in the intervening time make an appointment at their wizard-bar if things go wrong.
ReplyDeleteOthers who are less fortunate may have friends or family members who take on the role of unofficial tech-support, but many just rely on turning off all means of automatic update and never changing anything.
To answer your question: Easy, they do not use one. They use a Mac.
ReplyDeleteThere are very good reasons not to use websites that still use Flash, if you have any choice in the matter.
ReplyDeleteI switched my wife to a Mac Mini. Things got easier. I use a Macbook Pro.
ReplyDeleteBut... the flash problem is really due to a website which is dumb enough to still require flash, instead of upgrading to HTML 5. Flash needs to be eliminated ASAP - it is a pain, as you discovered, is often a vector for hackers, and is unnecessary with modern browsers.