Do you know what version of Flash you have installed? Do you know what the latest version of Flash is, so you can make sure you're running the latest and greatest? Do you know why either question is important?
Adobe Flash, sometimes still called Shockwave Flash or Macromedia Flash, is a platform that many websites choose to use to play video. On your end, your browser, like Chrome, Firefox, or IE, needs to have something called a plug-in so you can play those videos.
So, when you ask 'what version of Flash do I have?' what you're really asking is 'what version of the Flash plug-in for my browser do I have installed?'
Detect if Flash Player is installed in your browser (120bytes) - LICENSE.txt. A JavaScript library designed to simplify the process of detecting if the Adobe Flash Player is installed in a Web Browser. Please forward any questions, comments and feature requests to the JavaScript Flash Foundation Series Group. To generate the required HTML for adding an Adobe Flash Player movie to a. You can redirect users without Flash Player or with old version of player to other simple version of the website:Add following lines. Being redirected to html version of website or to follow link to install flash (delay page for few seconds and redirect automatically to html version if no action taken by user), you.
Knowing what version number of the Flash plug-in you have installed on your browser is important if you're troubleshooting an issue with videos playing, or are having some other problem with your browser.
The easiest way to tell what version of Flash you have installed in the browser in question, assuming Flash and your browser is working, is to visit the Flash Player Help page on Adobe's website. Once there, select Check Now.
In the YOUR SYSTEM INFORMATION section that appears, you'll see the Flash version that's running, as well as the name of the browser you're using and your operating system version.
If Adobe's automatic check doesn't work, you can usually right-click any Flash video and look for the Flash version number at the end of the pop-up box. It will look something like About Adobe Flash Player x.x.x.x.
If Flash videos aren't working at all, you get some kind of Flash related error message, or you can't even use your browser, see 'How to Manually check the Flash Version for a Browser' below for more help.
If you use more than one browser, re-run the check from each browser! Because browsers handle Flash differently, it's very common to be running different versions of Flash from browser to browser. See 'Flash Support by Browser' below for more on this.
Adobe is depreciating Flash Player at the end of 2020, so they will stop updating and distributing it then.
See the Adobe Flash Player page for the latest version of Flash for every supported browser on every supported operating system. This page is another place you can visit to see which Adobe Flash version is installed.
Updating to the latest version of Flash can be done from the Adobe Flash Player Download center on Adobe's site.
Adobe usually recommends that you install a couple of other programs along with Adobe Flash, but you don't have to. They're completely harmless programs — and may even be things that you want to have on your computer — but uncheck them if you don't want to install them.
Another option is a software updater. These are programs that you install for the purpose of keeping your other software updated, and many of them support Flash. See our list of free software updater programs for some of our favorites.
You most likely have to restart your web browser in order for a new Flash installation to take full effect.
Adobe's Check Now button is great, but if you're dealing with a major problem with Flash or your browser, which is a big reason why you'd want to know what version of Flash you have in the first place, it will probably do you no good.
Here's how to manually check the version of Flash running in each of these browsers:

If Chrome will start, type chrome://components in the address bar and look for Adobe Flash Player in the list. The Flash version number is shown right next to that entry.
If Chrome won't open normally, search your computer for pepflashplayer.dll and note the most recent version number of that file that's found. The file should be in a folder named the version number.
If Firefox starts, type about:plugins in the address bar and look for Shockwave Flash in the list. The version number of Flash is shown after Version:. If Firefox won't start, search your computer for NPSWF32 or NPSWF64. A number of files may be found, but take note of the version number of the file that has several underscores.
Select the gear button in Internet Explorer to open the menu, followed by Manage add-ons. Choose Shockwave Flash Object and then note the Flash version number at the bottom of the screen.
If you don't see the Flash item in the list of add-ons, change the Show: drop-down menu option to be All add-ons.
Open Control Panel and go to Programs > Programs and Features. Select once on Adobe Flash Player and note the number next to Product version at the bottom of Control Panel, or under the Version column off to the right.
From the Safari menu, select Preferences. Go to the Websites tab and locate the Plug-ins section. Under Adobe Flash Player is the Flash version number.
If you're using Mac OS X 10.10 or older, go to Safari > Preferences > Security and then choose Plug-in Settings or Manage Website Settings to see the Flash version.
The various major browsers in use today all work with Flash in different ways, making it a little difficult to stay updated if you use multiple browsers.
Google Chrome keeps Flash updated automatically, so assuming Chrome is working properly and updating automatically, so will Adobe Flash.
Mozilla Firefox doesn't keep Flash updated as Firefox updates, so you'll need to update Flash when prompted on your computer or download and install the latest versions as they become available.
Edge & Internet Explorer (IE) in Windows 10 and Windows 8 will keep Flash updated via Windows Update. See How Do I Install Windows Updates? if you need help with that. In versions of Windows older than Windows 10 & 8, however, Flash will need to be updated in IE via Adobe's Flash download center, just like with Firefox.
Safari doesn't keep Flash updated. You update Flash on a Mac when there's a prompt for a Flash update, or by downloading and installing Flash Player manually. So, updating Safari doesn't update Flash.
Other browsers not listed usually follow the same rules we outlined for Mozilla Firefox.
One of my friends came up to me a little while back and asked me if I was interested in buying some USB flash drives from him. He had about 200 pieces, they are all new and are about 60% below the current market price. It’s a very good deal when you can buy a $20 new USB flash drive for only $8. He couldn’t reveal how or where he got it from and that alone got me a little worried about the quality of the USB flash drives. He also told me that there won’t be any warranty if the USB flash drive fails. So I thought that the possibilities are they could be either stolen or are rejected stock from the factory.
The only thing I am afraid of is using a stick for a few times and it couldn’t read the files or can’t detect the drive anymore. I have also heard several stories of people buying USB flash drives from places like eBay and their true capacity being only a fraction of what was advertised. So, with all this in mind, I told him that I’d like to test the USB flash drives first before buying and he agreed. Windows comes with scandisk or chkdsk which I can use to scan for bad sectors but it lacks any soft of burn-in test or a test to check the true capacity. So here are 3 tools you can use to test the current condition and performance of a USB flash drive.
1. Check FlashCheck Flash (ChkFlsh) is a very simple flash drive testing and maintaining tool. I have used this tool several times to run a burn in read and write test on USB drives. If the device is able to survive after a few cycles, the USB flash drive should be OK. There are 3 access types and 6 action types for you to select. To access the actions of “Read stability test”, “Save image”, “Load image” and “Full erase” you have to change the Access type from temporary file to a logical or physical drive.
Other than checking for drive errors, it can also determine the read and write speed. The test length can be set to scan the drive just once, several specified passes, or leave it running until an error is found, or you tell it to stop. Check Flash is a free and single portable executable file. It can only test USB flash drive and not external hard drives.
Download Check Flash
2. RMPrepUSB
RMPrepUSB is a tool which is actually a USB formatting, partitioning and bootloader creation utility as opposed to a USB testing tool. While it’s not meant to be useful for doing a complete read and write scan, it does have a little function that can test your drive to see if there are missing or bad parts and what the actual usable size is. This is ideal to check if the drive is the capacity you believe it to be and is infinitely quicker than scanning the whole drive if that’s all you want to do.
Make sure the USB drive IS EMPTY because any contents will be deleted. Simply insert your drive and select the “Quick size test”. Portable and installable versions are available. This is also quite a good tool to experiment with bootloaders on your flash drive as there are several different types that can be used.
Download RMPrepUSB
3. H2testw
H2testw is able to test USB flash drives, memory cards and also internal, external and even network hard drives for errors. It simply works by filling the device with 1GB chunks of test data and then verifies it by reading the data back again. Usage is very simple. Select the English language because it defaults to German, select the target device, and then choose whether you want to test all available space or a specified amount of Megabytes.
Although H2testw is non destructive in that it won’t overwrite anything present on the drive, for best results, it’s recommended to have an empty and newly formatted device. This program has been found to be very good at testing both for errors and to find USB sticks with a fake capacity. H2testw is also a completely portable standalone executable.
Download H2testw
Warning re RMPrepUSB: I’ve downloaded and am testing all 3 apps mentioned in this article. I ran the “Quick Size Test” and found that as a result of that test the formatting of the flash drive was deleted. All I wanted to do was have it check for missing/bad portions but got “more” than expected.
It’s not a big deal and I might have done something wrong so my report is mentioned as a FWIW.
Because of this I’ve decided to uninstall RMPrepUSB from my computer.
ReplyThanks guys…just found a fake drive…(512gb memory showing and actualy he has only somewhere around 15gb) also usb 2.0 not 3.0 :D so that means…a 16gb memori flash.
ReplyYou want to be careful on how you test flash drives. Flash memory has a limited number of write/erase cycles (Google “flash endurance” for info). Too many writes to flash when testing could result in premature failure. And never defrag a flash drive since that creates excessive writing to the drive.
ReplyWhile it is true that flash memory has a limited number of write cycles, your concern about longevity is not reasonable. All flash memory on the market has a limit of between 10,000 and 100,000 P/E cycles. (Program/Erase cycles. Each set of Program and Erase functions represent one cycle.) Let’s put this in context. If you have a cheap flash drive that experiences such extreme use that, every day the drive is completely erased and filled to capacity; that flash drive should last 27.39726 years before it reaches complete failure. The heaviest use a flash drive is likely to see is when it is used as a ReadyBoost drive. This is when Windows is allowed to use flash as a buffer for a hard drive. I have two 8 GB drives serving that function and they each see daily use of around 4 GB per day. The expected P/E life is about 13.69862 years. The reality is that any flash drive will fail for other reasons long before you use up your P/E cycles. You also need to consider that the flash drive you favor today, is going to look pretty shabby in 4 or 5 years. Tech standards and data requirements change constantly and your hardware needs to change to keep up with those changes. So while I still appreciate what my pair of 8 GB USB 2.0 flash drives gave me in their time, they still got replaced with my pretty new 64 GB USB 3.0 drive. (It’s 4x the capacity and real world performance for the same price.) Needless to say, I know longer care about the 2.0 drives. And in a few years I won’t care about my 3.0 drive. As if all that were not enough to convince any rational person that P/E cycles are a non issue, the next big leap expected in the NAND architecture is the introduction of 1,000,000 P/E cycles to MLC NAND. (That is highly speculative, but it is the boon the SSD market is hoping for. Think SSD’s that can compete with hard drives in terms of price, capacity and endurance.)
ReplyNote, the 10,000 P/E cycle is for 50 nm MLC NAND and 100,000 is for SLC. With smaller lithographies and cheaper NAND pricing, the amount of P/E cycles have actually gone down for NAND used in consumer applications (e.g. consumer SSDs, cheap flash drives). The move to ~30 nm dropped down P/E cycles to 5,000 and ~20 nm dropped it further to 3,000 (but yay for cheaper SSDs!). Planar TLC NAND actually varies from 500-1,500 P/E cycles, iirc. Granted, the move to 3D upped P/E cycles by ~3x. While you may have NAND capable of 1,000,000 P/E cycles right now, no one’s using them for $10-20 USB flash drives. Enterprise-level SAN or industrial applications, sure.
Granted, even at 1,000 P/E cycles, this is a non-concern for average users. 32GB * 1000 P/E cycles = 32 TB worth of NAND writes (not factoring write amplification). One would be more likely to lose the flash drive or have bought a bigger one before writing that much data to the drive.
Mind, I actually have killed a few flash drives running PortableApps due to excessive wear on specific cells (non-recoverable read/write errors). Guess wear leveling wasn’t particularly good on those drives.
Replythanks, I was getting worried about the earlier comment
ReplyOne more utility for testing and debugging USB which wasn’t mentioned – USB test software eltima.com/products/usb-test-software/
ReplyI got writing errors using 2 programs. Are there any programs to fix my USB flash drive?
ReplyHey, thanks a lot. useful tools, i’ve downloaded them all. Problem is, the drives I’m testing is 1TB large. 90 hours with “Check Flash”… 95 min with the RMPrepUPB– good advice
Again, thanks
ReplyAre you saying that is took 90 hours or so to test a 1 TB drive? Should I assume around 60 hours for a 64GB drive?
ReplyI made like 3 cycles on ready only mode with check flash and it didnt find any error, but in write and read test if found 48 errors, is it fake?
ReplyYou can also try FakeFlashTest.exe as a very quick test for fake flash media.
ReplyDear Raymod
Well Done for your useful article.
h2testw is kinda slow especially takes long while if you have very large size drives. Personally I used HDDScan to test usb flash.
ReplyI used the h2testw on 128GB, 1TB, and a 2TB flash drive. USB 2.0 metal keys configurations from China.
Ran over 100 hours, day and night.
It Loaded thousands of files onto the flash drive.
Read them back presumably.
Gave output drive size.
Close to as advertised.
I did a DEL *.h2t to get rid of all those files. ThAT HAPPENED IN A FLASH.
i need this tools
thanks.
thank you very nice
ReplyThanks, it works.
ReplyThanks Raymond. You rock.
Reply
Nice tool Raymond.
ReplyThere’s more easy way to do that using the same OS API calls that will be used by any file manager tool should you happen to be needing to copy/write something on your USB drive. To do that you have to the following.
1. Select Start+R type cmd to start command prompt
2. In the command prompt window type:
fsutil file createnew X:dummy.dmp Y
where X is the drive letter for your USB stick,
Y is the number of kilobytes you want to write to your dummy.dmp file. Like if you want the file to be of 1 megabyte size type 1048576 instead of Y here (1 Mbyte=1024*1024=1048576 bytes)
If utility will fail to write this file, it may indicate you have problems with addressing or microchip on your USB drive.
Replythanks Ray. nice tool.
Reply