Ubuntu PC maker System76 will stop installing Adobe Flash on its laptops and desktops, saying the software is too dangerous and is no longer necessary."In 2007 System76 was granted a license from Adobe to pre-install Flash on all our laptops and desktops," the company said in a blog post yesterday . "In terms of making a great first impression with our customers, especially those new to Ubuntu, this was an important detail."

But Web content generally works well without Flash these days, and the software has been afflicted by repeated security problems, System76 noted.

This week, Adobe issued an emergency update for Flash Player to patch two critical zero-day vulnerabilities that allow attackers to install malware.

Firefox had blacklisted the vulnerable version, though users can re-enable it by updating Flash to get the latest patches. But some people, including Facebook Chief Security Officer Alex Stamos, believe Flash should be gotten rid of altogether. Yesterday, Stamos called on Adobe to "announce an end-of-life date for Flash," so that we can finally "disentangle the dependencies and upgrade the whole ecosystem."

Besides no longer installing Flash on new PCs, System76 recommended that users uninstall the software by running the command sudo apt-get purge flashplugin-installer .

"Even if you think you need Flash, you should experiment with a trial separation (by purging it with the above command). You’ll probably be surprised by how little your web experience changes," System76 wrote. "However, if you truly need Flash, you’ll probably be safest using Chrome, which includes an embedded Flash implementation that is sandboxed in a way that should mitigate the inevitable Flash zero-days to come."

Still, one Flash zero-day exploit managed to charge through Chrome's defenses, until Google patched the vulnerability.