Adobe Flash what's going on?
 

I'm not having any problems watching movies.

I run Ubuntu 16.04 and Firefox 48, everything is kept updated.

I keep getting these messages/warnings to update Adobe Flash (I have it deactivated in Firefox "add-ons".
Is there any reason I should be using it, I mean there is a message on the website that says 11.2 is the last version but they will keep updating it, so what! If we/I can't get the latest version why use it?
I believe I'm using "Videos", that's what I have activated in Firefox's applications list.
Is some kind of battle going on among Linux, Ubuntu and Adobe ?, confusing!

IMO, install the freshplayer plugin to run pepperflash and abandon "native" flash. It's over 9 versions out of date, and while it still gets some security updates, it's getting nearly useless now due to how out of date it is.

The battle started quite a long time ago.

Those messages are part of Mozilla's campaign against Flash.

https://blog.mozilla.org/futurerelea...ge-in-firefox/

Thanks Frank, "As we announced last year, Firefox plans to drop support for all NPAPI plugins, except Flash, in March 2017."

This will be a large mistake for firefox in my opinion.

For what it's worth I run Flash because the last time I looked needed it to view some sites still coded by imbecile (BBC iPlayer being one, despite "going HTML5"). I think the message is probably because the update mechanism for the packaged flashplayer plugins for the Debian-based distributions can be behind the official version of Flash either because nobody updated the Debian package or nobody at Adobe bothered to put the file where they said they would. Overall, though, I find that Flash is being updated and maintained (albeit an old version) and Firefox (the Debian install or Nightly from Mozilla directly) won't complain once Flash has really been updated -- this could mean either waiting, running something like update-flashpluginnonfree or reinstalling the Flash package for your distro.

PepperFlash works great in Firefox now with the freshplayer plugin. IMO, absolutely no reason to use the older, outdated, npapi flash plugin. Fresh has progressed to the point where the performance is as good as a native plugin despite the wrapper, and of course it supports a lot of stuff that the npapi flash simply doens't support due to it's age.

browser-plugin-freshplayer-pepperflash is available with the contrib section of the backports repo, and pepperflashplugin-nonfree is available via contrib in the normal jessie repos.

If it's going down the drain I would be more inclined to find/use a new video application that worked as well as flash, if there is one. I've been using Videos mainly because that's what is in the applications section of firefox. However some sites have a blanked out video window.

So I guess the question is: What is the best video player available?
I'm a big fan of YouTube videos and haven't had any problem viewing them, however I'm not sure what video player is being used, I thought it was "Videos" like I said because that's what's in the applications list of firefox, but how would one tell!

If a website uses Flash, that's its problem and not mine :D

But PepperFlash isn't supported by Mozilla and could just stop working at any time (I concede that Flash almost falls into this too) so when Flash is needed to tick a box then the simplest way is to use the outdated, but bugfixed, Flash that's made for Firefox. See my below answers for more of my reasoning.It's not really an issue of the best video player. I would suggest just uninstalling Flash and seeing how things go. Some people will never need Flash but if you need it then you don't have any choice.Well, yes, until you find the TV programs that you're paying taxes for aren't viewable without Flash (BBC) or similar. I now refuse to pay for any content delivered by Flash and my Flash use is, therefore, almost nil but when it's needed it's needed.

PepperFlash is the ONLY still developed flash (11.2 is only security patches, it's not still developed). So as long as Flash exists, Pepperflash will work since it's extracted from Chrome and the only version of Flash that's still actively developed. I completely disagree with using a version of flash that's so old it doesn't work with some things if you're forced to continue to use flash. I would much prefer to use the modern flash that's still being developed, will get regular performance AND security patches. IMO, that's just way simpler than trying to figure out why your flash isn't working because some site decided to use a feature that the old flash simply isn't able to support.

I suppose it depends why you're using Flash. I tend to think that it's there to tick a box or give some minor functionality so it's much simpler to use the built-in version. If things really need the latest version of Flash then, chances are, they're written by imbeciles and should be avoided like the plague. Anybody coding a site with Flash after 2011 was a moron and their site ought to be avoided like the plague it is.

It's still not built-in. Flash isn't native to Firefox. The only difference between using npapi flash and pepper flash is pepper needs an extra plugin to work, and gives you a newer, more secure (as secure as flash CAN be), and higher perormance (for flash) option instead of the npapi flash that has been abandoned.

Well, yes, it's a plugin inside a plugin in the browser that's more likely to stop working at the drop of a hat or cause issue or not actually be updated than the plugin inside the browser. With the npapi version you install something that Mozilla are, at least at time of typing, still supporting so it's less likely to just stop working or do something odd you can't track down.
Not that I think there's anything wrong with using the pepper version -- just that for me, at least, it's another layer of potential issues for no real world gain.

HTML5

i've also used the mozplugger for firefox, which allows me to embed my own media player into firefox.
but that doesn't work ootb with youtube and the like.

anyhow...
and believe it or not, web designers, or whatever the people in charge are called, are moving away from flash, and towards html5 and complex (and terribly resource hungry) CSS animations and the like.