Adobe provide online testing for Flash Player at http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/welcome/ (This page will also tell you which version is currently installed in your machine and provides a list of the latest player versions for each platform).
Adobe's PostScript language and Type 1 fonts, combined with the Apple Macintosh, Aldus PageMaker, and the original Apple LaserWriter, launched the "desktop publishing revolution," and I love Adobe Photoshop. Unfortunately, Adobe discontinued Aldus' PageMaker after acquiring it, which I believe was the same fate for Aldus FreeHand -- because Adobe had InDesign (new and NOT PageMaker) and Illustrator (for which FreeHand was the only real competition). Adobe seems to have had major problems maintaining the stability, security, and compatibility of the products it acquired from Macromedia. The browser plug-ins for Adobe Flash Player and Adobe Shockwave (which I've found to be superfluous and do not install) are always cause FireFox to crash. On Linux, I have two free, open-source alternatives, which is not the cash on Windows (although the open-source alternatives cane easily be compiled and used with Mac OS X if you have XCode installed). I use the FlashBlocker add-on with Firefox, enabling Flash on the rare occasions that I want to watch a Flash video -- with the added benefit of disabling Flash-based "Web bugs" and advertisements. I realize that Adobe has to create an ActiveX-based Flash BHO for Internet Explorer and that the Flash plug-in for Firefox is a DLL, but I rate Flash Player and Shockwave very poorly, because of the stability and security issues. Fortunately, I don't use YouTube very often. (Have you ever learned anything from the grainy and over-compressed computer/software tutorials on YouTube based upon capturing screen activity and text that you cannot see or read?) I miss the days when Web-based videos were in QuickTime, WMV (or AVI), and RealVideo format, because Web designers created different sizes and compression levels to accommodate the wide range of analogue modems and pre-DSL-and-cable-modem "true" broadband connections in use (focusing on 14.4k and 56k/V.90 modems, and offering large streams of high quality to users with the luxury of T1/T3 connections). Ironically, QuickTime, WMC, and Real (audio and video) Player still exist (and fight for file formats on Windows systems), but Flash content is seemingly omnipresent. Fortunately, VLC -- a free, open-source media player that handles almost every format (including DRM DVDs) -- has a browser plug-in (for multiple platforms) and continues to evolve, although it does have trouble buffering WMV files and often downloads large ones rather than playing them as the "stream." I was excited when Adobe announced its "open-source" Flex for Flash content on the Web, but it is an expensive, closed product. Real has an open-source server product, Helix, to allow Linux servers to offer Real content, which is a postive step. I wish that Adobe would open up the Flash format, even if it simple released the format/standard and developers had to create Flash content by hand-coding ActiveScript and previewing it in Flash Player. Adobe would benefit from open-source licensing, because any improvements to the ActionScript language would be released for free and improve the Flash infrastructure. (Of course, if Adobe were to use the open-source improvements to ActiveScript, it would be legally bound to release the code for improved releases of ActionScript -- which still would benefit Adobe and users, especially Web developers who cannot afford Flash development tools. As soon as there is a viable alternative to Flash for Windows (which I will remove from this computer as soon as the warranty has expired), I feel obligated to install Flash. NOTE: I use the freeware program, Secunia PSI, which automatically checks and installs updates to ensure that I am always running the most current versions Flash and other major applications. There are other similar tools available, all free for personal use, although I do not recommend that you run them in the background unless you have an "always on" broadband connection and a reasonably fast computer.
good program
go go to programing
good luck