Adobe Flash Player Install Manager appeared by itself

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Level 1

18 points

Adobe Flash Player Install Manager appeared by itself

I thought I was having a problem with Logic Pro X today and created an administrator test user account in Mac OS X to run a test. To my surprise, when I logged into this newly created account, an Adobe Flash Player installer disk image file was sitting on the Desktop and was already mounted. The installer window was open, showing an installer icon. I closed the window, ran my test in Logic Pro X, and went back to my normal admin user account. Upon logging back into my normal admin user account, again there was a mounted Adobe Flash Player installer, although this time it was in a Finder window sidebar and no disk image icon was on the Desktop. I have also discovered an Adobe Flash Player Installer Manager app in my Utilities folder that I did not install. I set the Utilities folder window to list view, enabled the date added column, and it showed the Adobe Flash Player Installer Manager was installed just about 30 minutes prior. This coincides with the only web surfing I had done all day, which was purchasing an Audio Units plugin license from a plugin reseller I have used before without any issues. However, I have not downloaded or installed anything today! Anyone heard of this before? It's making me nervous. My system is a fully updated OS X 10.9.5.

OS X Mavericks (10.9.5)

Posted on Jul 16, 2015 7:51 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Rysz

Level 8

44,391 points

Jul 16, 2015 8:09 PM in response to Lowen Slow

In System Preferences, check if you have a Flash Player pref pane installed. If Yes, check if you have auto download, or auto install set.

FWIW, there is such a thing as a legitimate Adobe Flash Player Installer Manager.

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Answer 2

Lowen Slow Author

Level 1

18 points

Jul 27, 2015 3:57 PM in response to Rysz

Hi Rysz,

Thank you for the reply. I do in fact have the Flash Player preference panel installed on my system and it is set to allow Adobe to install updates. However, it has been that way for a long time and it had never done anything like that before. As it turns out, there are a number of Mac users having this precise same experience posting to Adobe's forums. For example: https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1885232

Although my Mac hasn't suffered any ill effects that I am aware of, I have set the Flash Player preference panel notify me to install updates.

Thanks again,

Lowen

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Answer 3

Rysz

Level 8

44,391 points

Jul 27, 2015 6:11 PM in response to Lowen Slow

Although my Mac hasn't suffered any ill effects that I am aware of...

Flash is very CPU intensive. Admittedly, that matters much more on a laptop, than a desktop, since it drains the battery. The main reason for updating Flash is security. There seems to be a new Flash vulnerability discovered daily.

Most users no longer even have Flash Player installed. I do keep it installed but use Click-To-Plugin. It blocks all those flashing, blinking, distracting, annoying Flash ads that take forever to load. Instead of downloading these ads, you’ll see the space where they go marked with a “Flash” graphic.

http://hoyois.github.io/safariextensions/clicktoplugin/

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