516166 - Flash version check tells all GNU Gnash users to update Adobe Flash

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Websites :: plugins.mozilla.org, defect)

Description

[Tomasz Chrzczonowicz]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; pl-PL; rv:1.9.1.3) Gecko/20090909 Fedora/3.5.3-1.fc11 Firefox/3.5.3
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; pl-PL; rv:1.9.1.3) Gecko/20090909 Fedora/3.5.3-1.fc11 Firefox/3.5.3

I'm using Gnash (http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/) and not Adobe Flash. And yet, Firefox tells me to update to new Adobe Flash player.This is seriously wrong.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Run Firefox with Gnash installed

Comment 1

[Dave Garrett]

Confirmed. Gnash gets caught as old flash with the current checks.

It likes to call itself something like "Shockwave Flash 8.0 r99. Gnash 0.8.2". If we're checking for old Flash an exception needs to be made for Gnash here. If we really want to get fancy, it could even check for specifically what Gnash version is in use and see if that is too old and needs updating itself.

Comment 2

[dolphinling]

This probably affects swfdec users as well (haven't tested, I don't use swfdec).

A simple fix for gnash would be to check navigator.plugins['Shockwave Flash'].description, and see if it contains the string "Gnash".

Comment 3

[Michael Morgan [:morgamic]]

This is a bug with Gnash.  It shouldn't pose itself as Flash if it's not Flash.

Comment 4

[Dave Garrett]

(In reply to comment #3)
> This is a bug with Gnash.  It shouldn't pose itself as Flash if it's not Flash.

And every browser in existence reports itself as Mozilla, but that doesn't mean we ignore that fact in user agent detection.

It's a Flash substitute so it needs to pretend to be Flash to be used by things that need to detect Flash. They aren't going to change this any time soon and we really shouldn't tell every Linux user with Gnash that they should install latest Adobe Flash.

Comment 5

[Michael Morgan [:morgamic]]

Yes, was aware of the stuff in comment #4.  Reopening if someone wants to patch.

Comment 6

[Michal Nowak]

(In reply to comment #1)
> If we really want to get fancy, it could even check for specifically what Gnash
> version is in use and see if that is too old and needs updating itself.

Please do not. This is distros area, they should take care of having gnash, swfdec, ... security threats-free. Since they are open source it is not the same as with Adobe Flash Player.

Comment 8

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

Michal: Gnash is not just used on Linux. We should certainly be checking Gnash versions, just as we check Adobe Flash versions and versions of all sorts of other plug-ins. That's what the plugin checker is for :-)

Gerv

Comment 10

[skierpage]

For the URL http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/3.6/whatsnew/ mentioned in bug 641140 , the problem is in function flashWarning().  This winds up calling DetectFlashVer() and GetSwfVer().  I think these are minified versions of Adobe's example code to embed flash (but I can't find the "source" for mozilla.com on mxr).  The simplest fix is to have GetSwfVer() short-circuit as comment #2 suggests:

  var flashDescription=navigator.plugins["Shockwave Flash"+swVer2].description;
+ if (flashDescription.indexOf("Gnash") !== -1) { return -1 };
  var descArray=flashDescription.split(" ");

Comment 11

[Sam Tuke]

This bug affects me too and I'd really like to see it resolved.

I hate seeing a huge notice telling me to install the non-Free flash software with a link to Adobe even though I'm using Free Gnash.

Appreciate it's in a grey area regarding responsibility to fix (Mozilla / Gnash).

Please mediate and fix it though; this message is very confusing to non-technical users who are quite likely to cause package problems if they try and follow the unnecessary link to Adobe with which they are presented.

Comment 12

[maximi89]

This happens like comment 4 said...

it's a substitute, so it self identify like Adobe Flash, due to the Flash detection identifiers versions... i guess this could be done creating an additional identifier... this could be done creating a bug in the Gnash bugtrack to create this identifier, this additional identifier will help to mozilla to detect when the people are using SWFdec, LightSpark, Gnash, Adobe or others...

IE, an additional field in the plugins, that identify itself as one of the Flash alternative... then if the plugin it's too old, the same flash alternative have another field with the URL of the flash... so Firefox use that field to tell to the user to update to last version in that URL... or if that field who identify the flash alternative doesn't exist, in that case Firefox just tell to the user to update to Adobe Flash, but if that fields exist, so Firefox tell the other alternative... 
More easy could be to have another option, if the flash plugin crash, just tell: 

"You need to upgrade to the last version of the flash you use:
http://www.gnashdev.org
https://github.com/lightspark/lightspark/wiki
http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/"

Comment 13

[Kev Needham [:kev]]

Given state of plugins and plugincheck, resolving wontfix