It's a historical quirk that there are two similarly named plugins:

• Shockwave Flash, for playing Flash media: http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/

• Shockwave for Director, for playing Director media: you do not have this plugin showing in your More System Details, probably because most people do not need it

When looking for the Shockwave Flash plugin, focus on the "Flash" part.

Step 2 should look like the attached, or should I say, Windows 7 users see this sequences of screens at step 2.

Thanks for the replies, but I keep getting sent in a circle, even when trying to download Flash as the 1st response said to do, never get the "step 2 of 3" page or download pop-up. It goes from "step 1 of 3" to the page in the attached image. Clicking on flash at the bottom circles back to "step 1 of 3".

Going to switch to IE although I hate it, all least it works.

If you prefer Firefox, try:

(1) The "distribution" page: http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/distribution3.html ("Plugin-based browsers" category)

(2) Downloading the installer in Firefox's Safe Mode. This will deactivate your extensions temporarily in case one of them is interfering with how Adobe's site navigation works. More info: Diagnose Firefox issues using Troubleshoot Mode.

You can restart Firefox in Safe Mode using

Help > Restart with Add-ons Disabled

In the dialog, click "Start in Safe Mode" (not Reset)

Any difference?

Yes, you hit it on the head, FF was interfering with the progression of web pages on Adobe's site.

But if you have to know that you should disable add-ons to download or update one, FF is heading down the wrong road asking naive users to figure that out.

I was a programmer many years ago, if you don't check for such eventualities in your code and make users look things up, you have written poor code.

Thanks for the help

flash 12 beta version

http://labsdownload.adobe.com/pub/labs/flashruntimes/flashplayer/flashplayer12-0_install_win_pi.exe

My guess would be that Ghostery is hiding something from Adobe's server that it uses for normal navigation. Privacy enhancing tools can have odd side effects on some sites. Adblock Plus and other popular extensions also occasionally break websites.

If you can think of a way for Firefox to detect the issue and present an understandable infobar and button (or other UI affordance) suggesting a one-time exception, and having a way to temporarily deactivate the extension on a site-by-site (or tab-by-tab) basis, that would be a great feature.

Or for the sake of simplicity, maybe a "fix this site" button that clears cache and cookies, and reloads the tab in Safe Mode? I'd love to be able to suggest clicking one button instead of a page of instructions...

Well, something to think about.

Good thoughts. Since more and more users are tired of the horrid addiction vendors have to private information, Ghostery and other add-ons that we legitimately need in order to reclaim a bit of control over where we go on the web, could be detected easily. Then your idea would work, the ability to deactivate tab-by-tab, or the one button reload and voila, problem solved.

Hi McLaine,

I was reviewing threads that need attention and it looks like you solved the problem updating the Adobe Flash ("Shockwave Flash") plugin. I marked the reply by jscher2000 from earlier today as solving it. . If you still have problems or questions about updating Flash, please post back.