Why shockwave flash plug-in in Z5?

olaf

I just installed zotero 5 standalone on my mac as firefox does not work with z4 anymore. After installation I noticed, that zotero 5 has an shockwave flash plug-in installed. Does Z5 need that plug-in for working correct? I also can not select the option "ask to activate" (in order to see when it might be needed) but only choose between "always activate" and "never activate".

adamsmith

nope, that's just an artefact of the platform. You can disable it.

olaf

thanks for the quick response. I will disable it, since Flash is known for security issues (although by now less important since it is only in the zotero platform not the browser itself)

dstillman

And to be clear, Flash certainly isn't something that Zotero includes. If it's showing up, it's still installed as a plugin on your system (in /Library/Internet Plug-Ins or ~/Library/Internet Plug-Ins).

olaf

I see, Z5 inherits for the standalone platform what was/is before installed in firefox.
Now I used and still use the shockwave flash plug-in in FF with "ask before activate" mode so I can decide on a case by case base, if I activate flash to view specific content on a webpage. It seems that Zotero does not inherit that preference from FF.
I know that flash has a general reputation of frequent security issues. I do not know if this affects an zotero installation, since I do not view webpages with zotero. Maybe when I store a screenshot of an malicious prepared webpage into zotero? If so it would be nice if Z5 could deactivate the plug-in by default. I am shure that many users are not aware that they have installed the plug-in (I myself only noticed when I was installing zotfile add-on).