

IE10 blocked access to Flash animations, except for those sites that appeared on a Microsoft-maintained whitelist. Starting in IE10, customers didn't have to update Flash Microsoft took care of the onerous chore as part of its IE patches. (Google did the same with the Chrome Flash player years before.) The IE10 Flash player rolled out with great fanfare, as Microsoft assured us it was fortified with security sandboxes galore. When Microsoft launched Internet Explorer 10 in conjunction with Windows 8 back in August 2012, it shipped the Flash player as an integrated part of the browser. Adobe was never able to plug the security holes, and Windows customers suffered. Adobe Flash has long been one of the three primary infection targets for Windows PCs, with Adobe Acrobat and browser-based JavaScript providing the other favored vectors. To understand the nature of the problem, it helps to know the history. The only solution that seems to work: Use Firefox or Chrome. The IE patch delivered on Black Tuesday earlier this month was supposed to help, but it doesn't. Microsoft hasn't come up with an explanation, much less a fix. The support forums are clogged with complaints, citing different symptoms, from sites (including YouTube) that don't render properly and/or freeze completely to BSODs to repeated, bogus exhortations to download the latest Flash player. If you're having problems getting Flash sites to display properly in Internet Explorer 11 - whether you're running Windows 7, 8, or 8.1 - you aren't alone.
