When people start to list the reasons Android is better thaniOS, one of the first things that typically comes up is Android’s ability torun Adobe’s Flash. While a lot of the web is moving to HTML5 for delivery ofright multimedia content, Flash still powers a lot of web content, and ifyou’re not running flash on your phone, you’re not getting everything you canout of the web. The iPhone doesn’t do Flash, so score one for Team Android.
This past week, Adobe announced that the company was issuinga critical update for the ultra-popular application, as a vulnerability wasdiscovered in Flash. This vulnerability could allow ne’er-do-wells to crashapps on a user’s computer, or even allow the computer to be hijacked.
While the majority of the people affected will be using Windowsmachines, the Android version of Flash is still considered vulnerable, and hastherefore gotten a security update.
To update your copy of Flash, open up Google Play, tap onthe menu button and then choose “My Apps”. You’ll see a list of apps you canupdate, including Adobe Flash, if you have it on your Android device.
Click on it, and then tap the “Update” button to start theupdate process. Tap “Accept & download” and your copy of Flash will bebumped up to the newer, secured version.
Of course, this is as good a time as any to mention thatit’s worth checking regularly to see if there are any updates for your apps,using the same update process…even if you don’t hear about a critical update,there are often helpful updates available that add features (or game levels),fix bugs and, yes, plug potential security holes.
