Adobe Flash and Google Chrome – Newsmap.jp

Update: Thanks to commenters, I’ve confirmed that this fix no longer works for newsmap.jp on Chrome.  You can use a modernized version of newsmap that uses html5/js instead of flash: https://newsmap-js.herokuapp.com/

I like the Google Chrome Browser. But Google’s agenda doesn’t always align with the reality of the internet.  Take Flash as an example.  Adobe Flash has been dying a slow death online; rightfully so in some respects: It has proven to be a security risk and a battery life killer. Google, for that matter, is doing their part by slowly disabling Flash in the Chrome browser. They’ve defined their timeline, some interesting details here and here. In December 2016 Chrome 55+, they disabled Flash by default, with some exceptions.

As I understood it, there is supposed to be a warning in the browser bar or an ability to enable Flash content in-line on a website, like this:  

But this doesn’t always work.  One of my favorite websites, newsmap.jp , a visual tool to view Google News, is one such example where Chrome’s method of blocking/prompting to enable flash by default fails.  The website appears to do a check to see if Flash is installed early on, and prompts you to install it if it doesn’t detect it right away…  See screenshot below:

 

What’s the fix?  I found a couple ways; first the easy fix for this site:

 

Easy Fix:

On the top left of the website, before the website address, click the “i” with a circle icon, looks like this: 

 

Then go down to Flash: And choose “Always Allow On This Site”; see below:

Chrome will then prompt to reload the page: 

 

And now your website with Flash content works as expected:

Harder Fix:

The harder fix involves you going into Settings, Advanced Settings, Privacy Settings, Content Settings… Flash, and adding an exception for the site in question.  This worked well for another site, speedtest.net that checks for the presence of Flash and then quickly redirects you to their non-flash test page…

In the Flash exception settings,   I added a rule that included any subdomain under speedtest.net:  [*.]speedtest.net   Navigated fresh to speedtest.net, and it worked great.

In Conclusion:

As Google Chrome continues the crusade to steer folks away from Flash, it will likely become harder to workaround; but at least for now, there are some ways to get Flash going, even on sites that attempt to detect flash before loading…

 

 

By Steven Drzaszcz

In progress..

6 comments

  1. Thanks for the article 🙂
    I found this because newsmap.jp stopped working for me as well, just some weeks ago. Are you affected (again) too? Your fix doesn’t work for me, unfortunately. I updated Flash and managed the settings in Chrome but all I see is the white loading circle from newsmap :/

  2. I have the same endless loading circle as well; There is an HTML5 version that’s similar newsmap.jp but I have to search through some links to find it

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