Remove pepperflashplugin-nonfree from Ubuntu 17.10 "Artful Aardvark"

[Naël]

Please remove pepperflashplugin-nonfree from Ubuntu, starting from the upcoming Ubuntu 17.10 "Artful Aardvark".

pepperflashplugin-nonfree is the only (packaged) way for Debian users to install the PPAPI Flash plugin, but adobe-flashplugin from Canonical's partner repository is recommended instead for Ubuntu users and installs both the PPAPI and the NPAPI Flash plugins.

https://help.ubuntu.com/stable/ubuntu-help/net-install-flash.html

The drawback of pepperflashplugin-nonfree is that it doesn't update with new versions of Adobe Flash, contrary to adobe-flashplugin. The user has to run a separate update script, provided by the package, to update the Flash plugin ("sudo update-pepperflashplugin-nonfree --install"). Most normal Ubuntu users are not aware of this fact and never manually update their Flash plugin, which puts them at risk of security vulnerabilities. This has led one user to proposing a cronjob-improved version of the package (ppa:jonathonf/pepperflashplugin-nonfree).

The advantage of pepperflashplugin-nonfree over adobe-flashplugin is that it is in multiverse rather than in partner.

I believe that the drawback outweighs the advantage and that pepperflashplugin-nonfree should be dropped from Ubuntu (but not from Debian). Please discuss here if you agree or not. Also please see bug 1632870 where the idea of removing pepperflashplugin-nonfree was first floated (comments 31, 32, 34, 40, 42, 43, 52). Thanks.

[Jeremy Bícha (jbicha)]

adobe-flashplugin does not exist in Debian.

Why not propose the cronjob to Debian to fix this package for Debian and Ubuntu users?

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj)]

@Jeremy: That would be good for Debian users, but what's the point with providing both adobe-flashplugin and pepperflashplugin-nonfree in Ubuntu?

The information at Ask Ubuntu and similar places about how to get Flash working is currently very confusing, to a large extent as a result of Adobe's poor support for Linux in the past. The web is flooded with dated and directly incorrect advices.

The ubuntu-docs page, which Naël linked to, provides a concise guide to Ubuntu users. pepperflashplugin-nonfree wouldn't add much value in that context, whether it's improved with some cronjob or not.