So, last night I was trying to get Angry Birds working in Internet Explorer following a tweet by Paul Rouget. Although others report it should be working, I got stuck at the opening screen, where I’m prompted to use Chrome or to install the latest Flash plug-in. For some reason, the update kept experiencing errors, but I did get a glimpse of something interesting while trying: during the first attempt, the install page suggested I also download Google Chrome, a fast web browser with optimized Adobe Flash Player integration
! 
I guess the move isn’t all that surprising, given the collaboration between Adobe and Google on several fronts, from desktop to mobile browsing. And Chrome was the first browser to take advantage of the new privacy features in Flash 10.3, allowing more control over the local storage. I actually had the new Flash version for some time in the Canary build and it looks like the stable channel was also updated before the official release from Adobe – which was the whole point in bundling the plugin with Chrome: to offer the most secure version in the shortest time possible.
I made several other attempts to install Flash in Internet Explorer, but that kept failing for the rest of the evening – it finally worked today, but Angry Birds still doesn’t recognize it. The screen offering the Chrome download has also refused to pop up again – it got replaced with another suggestion, Google Toolbar. Maybe I stumbled upon a not-yet-public partnership or maybe the site just remembered my first refusal of Chrome and stop suggesting it to me. Did you see this prompt while downloading Flash?
8 comments:
I was not given the option. When I updated Flash, Adobe also installed Chrome without my knowledge or permission on a laptop I do *not* want Chrome on.
One very nasty bad mark for both Adobe and Google. This was slimy as anything I've experienced in 20 years of being slimed by software developers.
Been searching for a week to find info on this. I didn't notice any checkmark to de-select. It simply started installing it. i quickly cancelled it and decided to disable Flash in Firefox altogether. See how that goes.
Flash hater.
I had the same experience as the previous two commenters. I had a new PC and installed firefox 5. When I got to a page with flash content, I clicked the install flash link.
I pay attention to install options, and I didn't see any option for installing Chrome. When I installed flash, it also installed Chrome without providing any option to deselect the chrome install.
I uninstalled Chrome afterwards, but now I have a really bad taste in my mouth regarding Adobe Flash and Google Chrome. This is not ethical behavior, to secretly install unwanted software, and Adobe and Google both know better. Two thumbs down!
The previous commenter mentioned disabling flash altogether; I haven't had luck with that because I need it for things like youtube videos, but the firefox add-on flashblock is great! It blocks flash, but gives you the option to allow it where you need it.
To play YouTube videos without Flash, you can join the HTML5 experiment here: www.youtube.com/html5. Most of the videos should be encoded in the WebM format, which Firefox also supports since version 4.
Adobe Flash Player update installed Chrome and the Google Toolbar without permission - this is a serious problem and as a user of professional Adobe products like Photoshop I am ready to switch to another company because of it.
Not only did it install without permission, when I uninstalled them, I found that they had hosed my ability to click on hyperlinks in Outlook emails. I found that to overcome this I had to edit the registry to change a variety of entries from "CHROMEhtml" to "htmlfile."
This is outrageous behavior by Adobe and by Google and I hope users let them hear about it loud and clear.
By the way, directions for registry editing to remove the Google Chrome/Adobe hosing of your registry can be found at http://www.slipstick.com/problems/this-operation-has-been-cancelled-due-to-restrictions/#reg2
Installing other software without permission.
A really bad habit.
After uninstalling chrome and google toolbar I also had problems with hyperlinks but noticed this in Excel.
Luckely I had a restore point from the day before.
After restoring, everything worked fine again.
That they force people to install something that messes up your sytem is criminal.
Exactly as others reported, I installed the latest Adobe Flash Player update and it installed Chrome and the Google Toolbar without permission AND it made Chrome my default browser. To make matters even worse, uninstalling Chrome has now broken my ability to click on hyperlinke in Outlook e-mails and I'm going to have to edit my Registry keys to fix this. Very shoddy behavior on the part of Adobe and Google.
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