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Chrome Flash

Every time I launch Google Chrome, I get this notification on top. I'm not going to turn it off, and I click on the x button to close it but it pops up again when I restart Chrome.

Is there any hidden setting or workaround to disable this notification?

Ellie Kesselman
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Shayan
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    Well, sure it's going to be irritating, I get that - but what do you still use that needs Flash, & have you asked whether the developer is planning on getting away from an obsolete platform? That would be my primary concern. I banned Flash from this entire building 5 years ago & no-one's come to me begging for it back since. – Tetsujin Aug 31 '19 at 10:02
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    @Tetsujin Honestly, I play lots of flash games still. I'd love to ban it too for security concerns but developers need to move to HTML5 and the transition is not that fast. Flash is going to be removed in 16 months from now and Chrome is going to annoy me with this notification for all that long.. It's so frustrating..! – Shayan Aug 31 '19 at 10:31
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    @Tetsujin there's loads of Flash content including classic games that is not maintained, and is likely never going to be updated or moved to another platform. – Peteris Aug 31 '19 at 18:43
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    I think that making it annoying is a design feature. And even then, some people will complain that suddenly Flash doesn't work or that they didn't knwo about it in advance. – Ángel Sep 01 '19 at 00:28
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    I don't know if this is possible, but perhaps you could download the flash games and use them locally with a flash player/interpreter? this would work even after the browser drops support – sudo rm -rf slash Sep 01 '19 at 04:18
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    @Ángel Nobody's saying it shouldn't be there at all – obviously it's useful for the "some people" you are referring to, so that it won't come as a surprise once Flash support ends. What this annoyance is about, is that you cannot disable it. They could've easily added a switch for it somewhere deep in Chrome's Settings, where the average user wouldn't go anyway, and only users who knew what they were doing could then switch it off, fully aware at this point that support for Flash is being dropped. – Sio Sep 01 '19 at 10:11
  • I can't get rid of it entirely, but I find that having Chrome reload my session from where I left off means it appears only very briefly. I also find absolutely no issues leaving Chrome on and only relaunching once a month, when I have to restart Windows to update. – trlkly Sep 01 '19 at 20:33
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    @sudorm-rfslash I thought you said "sudo rm -rf flash"... – Harper - Reinstate Monica Sep 01 '19 at 22:25

3 Answers3

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Unfortunately, according to the Google 'Product Expert' here, there doesn't seem to be any way to disable the notification.  Considering the amount of complaints about it, however, here's hoping they'll release an update soon that will allow turning it off permanently.

That said, this news might cheer you up a little bit:

"Apparently the Chrome v78 update will snooze the pop-up for 14 days."  – Source

But I believe that every 14 days for a year isn't that great either!

Personally, I have turned Flash off, and enable it only when prompted by a trusted website – which, fortunately, happens less and less nowadays.

G-Man Says 'Reinstate Monica'
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Sio
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  • Or you could always download a previous version of Chrome... currently using Chrome 73 - but that does have a security risk, doesn't it? ;) – ReinstateMonica3167040 Sep 01 '19 at 00:49
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    Or, if you don't need Google-specific additions, you can try compiling Chromium with this notification stubbed out (see `FlashDeprecationInfoBarDelegate::ShouldDisplayFlashDeprecation` which appeared in [this commit](https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src.git/+/a9dd46705c707681d5d0d5922de0f531341f130e%5E%21)) — or even stub it out in the binary using a hex editor (by putting something like `33 c0 c3` at the entry point of this method on x86/x86_64). – Ruslan Sep 01 '19 at 06:49
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    _"Considering the amount of complaints about it, however, here's hoping they'll release an update soon"_ You must be new to Google Chrome threads – Lightness Races in Orbit Sep 01 '19 at 15:56
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    The complaints are by design. They want anyone using Flash to stop using it, due to the annoyance. – trlkly Sep 01 '19 at 20:31
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    @LightnessRacesinOrbit Hence "hoping". I'm a test engineer – all I do all day is hoping for things to get fixed, knowing they won't ;) – Sio Sep 01 '19 at 21:19
  • > (see FlashDeprecationInfoBarDelegate::ShouldDisplayFlashDeprecation which >appeared in this commit) — or even stub it out in the binary using a hex editor (by > putting something like 33 c0 c3 can you give hex codes to replace and hex codes to inject, then no need to recompile, can be directly cracked ? – TarmoPikaro Jan 17 '21 at 08:38
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The only way I know this would work is downloading/installing an older version of Chrome (Pre-76) and disabling updates. For the latest version, the only way to get rid of it is actually disabling flash.

I wouldn't recommend you do this for a browser you use as your main, as it entails security issues not limited to flash. But keeping an old version as a "Flash browser" is probably an option. Another option would be Flash Player Projector, although this does derail from the actual question as it isn't usable inside browsers, only on standalone files, and doesn't affect the nag message displayed in chrome.

Eskir
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You can go to

Settings -> Site settings -> Flash

and remove the check on the CheckBox for "Your Flash settings will be kept until you quit Chrome. Ask first".

Dave M
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Ihor Filimonov
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