hello grapeman, what security related programs are running on your system?

Hi madperson. I have comodo internet security.

You can check for problems caused by recent Flash updates and try these:

• disable a possible RealPlayer Browser Record Plugin extension for Firefox and update the RealPlayer if installed
• disable protected mode in Flash 11.3 and later
• disable hardware acceleration in the Flash plugin

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Flash#Troubleshooting

Disabling protected mode seems to have resolved the issues.

Many thanks!

Disabling protected mode helped me too, I was having exactly the same probelm - Mouse pointer will take a few seconds to change, volume control will take too long in opening up and in general VERY slow flash. I saw that there were two FlashPlayer processes running for me.

Now the important question is, WHY do you keep it as such by default? Why do all such problems happen only with Firefox and not with Chrome? Both run flash, but Chrome runs perfectly with or without this setting.

You raise a good very good point. Why does this only happen in Firefox and not IE/Chrome?

since version 11.3 adobe ships its flash plugin with the protected mode for firefox - ie and chrome get supplied with different versions of the plugin: http://blogs.adobe.com/asset/2012/06/inside-flash-player-protected-mode-for-firefox.html