Adobe just released a critical Flash Player security update. Good news: it includes a new automatic updater for Windows. Bad news: Adobe's download page pushes a misleading "system optimizer" designed to scare users into paying for unneeded repairs.
Update: Even on a completely clean installation of Windows 7, the "system optimizer" utility I discuss in this post found hundreds of "critical errors" that could only be fixed after paying for the repair. See Update 2 at the end of this post for details.
March 30: I've captured a video of the entire process and uploaded it to YouTube. The unedited video (approximately 10 minutes) is here.
Adobe did something good this week, releasing a new version of its Flash Player software with automatic updating capabilities.
They also did something truly awful-using their update page to push a third-party scareware program designed to separate naive PC users from their cash.
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