Question from HP engineering team – Adobe Flash Plug-in

[Brad Klein]

We are looking at different technologies that can be used in producing rich management applications for system administration and some of them require browser plug-ins. We would like to get some information from you related to the prevalence of Adobe Flash plug-ins on administrator's browsers. We asked similar questions in August of 2007 and would like to get an updated sample on this matter.

1. What operating system is running on the PC you use to perform the majority of your system administration tasks?
2. Do you currently have the Adobe Flash plug-in loaded in the browser on the PC you use for the majority of your system administration tasks? If not, why not?
3. Are there policies at your workplace that prohibit the installation of the Adobe Flash plug-in (or plug-ins in general) for system administrators management PCs? (please elaborate)

Thank you for any insights you provide.

[cnb · Accepted solution]

1) XP and W2K AS.
2) Yes.
3) No.

[Bill Speers]

1)windows xp / srv2k3. tried vista but the admin tools are still a little buggy in vista. i also use linux as well.

2)no its a security risk. flash is frequently updated unfortunately its not easy to apply the updates (automatically or otherwise). Adobe is also a pain about providing stand alone updates / installers and make you sign up and go through a lengthy process in order to get stand alone versions.

3)yes it is prohibited due to the security risk involved.

[Kase]

1. Administrators at Black Mesa run a mixture of XP, Vista and Ubuntu.
2. Although Black Mesa is extremely security-conscious, administrators are allowed to load personalized applications and utilities they deem required for their job. This includes Flash.
3. There are no specific policies banning Flash on administrative workstations at Black Mesa.

[Graeme Bray]

1. Windows XP (Possibly Windows Vista in the future)

All servers are Windows 2000/Windows 2003 (Std/Ent, 32/64)

2. Flash player is currently loaded as a standard when the PC's are built. Flash is *not* installed on the Servers.

3. See above. Flash is allowed

[Brad Klein]

Thanks to all who responded for the valuable feedback!