Need Adobe Flash Updates on Linux? Then You'll Need Google Chrome

by Sam Dean - Feb. 22, 2012Comments (5)

In a move that may seriously irk users of Firefox and many other browsers on Linux, Adobe has announced that it has partnered with Google on a "modern API for hosting plugins within the browser" and Flash Player for Linux, effectively requiring that Linux users use Google Chrome if they want updated versions of Flash. The new API, "Pepper," "aims to provide a layer between the plugin and browser that abstracts away differences between browser and operating system implementations," says Adobe. Pepper will effectively replace the Netscape plug-in API that Flash Player currently uses, but Mozilla has made it abundantly clear that it is not interested in working with Pepper at all.

In a terse posting on Mozilla's wiki, the following lines appear:

"Mozilla is not interested in or working on Pepper at this time. See the Chrome Pepper pages."

That's it? Nearly 80 percent of the video content on the web is Flash. What will users of Firefox on Linux do regarding updated versions of Flash?

Adobe does say in its announcement that it "will continue to provide security updates to non-Pepper distributions of Flash Player 11.2 on Linux for five years from its release," but the Chrome-only future for true Flash updates on Linux seems clear in this part of the announcement:

"For Flash Player releases after 11.2, the Flash Player browser plugin for Linux will only be available via the 'Pepper' API as part of the Google Chrome browser distribution and will no longer be available as a direct download from Adobe."

Here's the real rub: Adobe will continue to support non-Pepper plug-in APIs on other major platforms--just not Linux. This seems like a slap in the face to the Linux community, and isn't the first time Adobe has popped up with such a heavy-handed move. Ironically, the Chrome browser was originally based on contributions from the Linux-focused team at Canonical. Now, Chrome is going to be the required gatekeeper if you want updated Flash on Linux. Go figure.