Risk of buying beats from websites using flash

Several poorly designed and template cookie-cutter beat selling websites utilize the Adobe Flash Player to present and sell their instrumentals to ignorant beat purchasers all over the world. "How dare you call others ignorant! That’s offensive!" Yes, it’s offensive, but it’s true! An artist seeking to buy hip hop beats and instrumentals online should never, ever buy beats online from a website that uses the Adobe Flash Player browser plug-in! In fact, it is highly recommended by security professionals that you disable the Flash Player plug-in entirely in all of your web browsers such as Firefox and Chrome! There IS a reason why Apple product developers hate Flash software and choose not to use it! Keep reading if you want to know why you should never purchase beats from a website that sells their beats through the Adobe Flash Player browser plug-in!

Adobe Flash Player is one of the most unsecured browser plug-ins in the web realm today

I found out that several of the most popular beat selling websites are using Flash to present and sell their products. Many of these extremely popular beat selling websites are just basic cookie-cutter templates and do not have the passion, user experience, and hours of design and coding put into the final product like the Zanderjaz website. I’m not trying to bash these other beat selling websites because I understand most of them do not have the 10+ years of design and coding knowledge that I possess. Many producers out there today just want to get their beats on the internet, so they pay a designer a couple hundred bucks or so to create a new skin for an existing template. Template websites are cheap and not very time consuming, so tons of beat selling producers opt for this cookie-cutter template system that utilizes an unsecured Adobe Flash Player to sell their beats, however, they fail to consider their customers’ security by using this browser plug-in.

Several articles online will warn you that the Adobe Flash Player plug-in ought to be disabled for a safer browsing experience, yet you might have purchased beats online from an unknowing producer that uses Flash to sell their beats. Have you ever wondered why your computer pops up with a new Adobe Flash update so frequently after a boot up? Well, it’s because new security holes are discovered in Flash on a continual basis, so they have to constantly update and patch the holes! That is one major reason why you should never use Flash. I recommend that you go ahead and completely disable the Flash plug-in in all of your browsers!

Often times, meticulous internet surfers like to clean their browsing history. You might think you cleaned your browsing history, but did you really? No. You didn’t. There is this thing called an LSO (local shared object, or Flash cookie), which is basically a cookie that was inserted into your computer by the Flash plug-in! Regular programs that delete your browsing history usually don’t catch this LSO object and it stays on your computer allowing for tracking and other nefarious means. You could be getting tracked without even knowing it (big surprise there, eh). If a hacker were to gain control of this LSO file, who knows what they could do with your information. This is yet another reason to completely abandon Flash and never purchase beats online from those template-based websites that use the crummy Flash Player plug-in! Operators of these Flash-based websites clearly do not have their users security in mind.

But… Won’t YouTube and Vimeo videos stop playing if I disable or delete Flash in my browser? No. Properly coded websites will use other means of video streaming such as HTML5. There is no reason to use Flash Player. I use the following combination of browser plug-ins to help me have a safer browsing experience with less tracking and annoying scripts: Ghostery, AdNauseam, AdBlock Plus and NoScript in my Firefox browser. A lot of people are raving about uBlockOrigin as well. I recommend tinkering with these browser plug-ins and seeing which ones you like most. You won’t find any ads on the Zanderjaz website, however, I do use some analytics software to enhance the experience for the visitors of my website. You can easily block these by using the Ghostery plug-in, and I recommend it if you do not like being tracked!

I found out that most of these beat selling websites are using "myFlashStore Player" and that it only requires Version 9 of Flash to function correctly. Here’s a quick little tidbit of info: Flash Player is now on version 19! MyFlashStore Player only requires Flash version 9 or higher. Imagine the security holes in that plug-in! I couldn’t count on two hands the amount of beat selling websites I’ve seen using this played out plug-in on their beat selling page. They ALL look damn near the same and lack originality. If I were buying beats online, I’d be extremely hesitant to enter my credit card into that software.

Why would you want to purchase beats from someone that doesn’t have your personal security in mind as a first priority? In my business practice, the customer always comes first and is always right. Security of information should be a top concern in all business. These ignorant salesmen do not know that by using the Flash plug-in, their customers’ personal information could become compromised and they wouldn’t even know. Also, why would you want to purchase from a beat seller that just copies the same overused template that hundreds of other supposed producers and artists have already worn out over the past several years? If they can’t put creativity into their online presence, what makes you think they put an extreme level of passion into their own music? Many of the template producers put images of mainstream pop artists like Rick Ross, Drake and Nicki Minaj on their obnoxiously large header image and imply that you will be rapping on the same beats as these major pop artists, which is a lie!

The main purpose of this article is to inform you about your own personal security and to let you know that you should expand your horizon when buying beats online. Consider shopping through my archive of over 200 original instrumentals! Zanderjaz offers SSL browsing experience (see security lock in address bar), secure purchases via PayPal, secure media playing through HTML5 audio (not Flash!), mobile friendly design so you can browse on the go, ease of use, and great customer support. I have put thousands of hours into my work by creating everything you see on this website by myself. No templates here.

If you have any questions about browser security or browser plug-ins, feel free to drop me a comment below! Peace.