"This website wants to run ....'Adobe Flash Player' ...

Hi Syncopator. A lot of websites use Adobe Flash Player to order to host videos. Adobe Flash Player allows users to watch videos online. Do you have Adobe Flash Player installed? If you do then right click the menu bar where you receive that message and allow IE8 to run the Adobe Flash Player add-on.

 

Hmm. Ok, try this, Open IE8 and click Tools< Internet Options< Security Tab. Highlight each Internet Zone: Internet, Local Intranet, Trusted Sites, Restricted Sites and click the default level button after highlighting each zone. When all 4 zones are at the default level click apply. Now click on the Privacy Tab and under settings click the default button. When done click apply and ok. Restart Internet Explorer and now see if you get the flash player warning.

 

Remove & reinstall.

Due to recent enhancements to the Adobe Flash Player installers, you can now remove the player only by using the Adobe Flash Player uninstaller.

Also:

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Verify this message prompt is not coming from an Internet Security software. IE8 won't throw out that alert when using default settings. Thus it's probably generated by some other software such as Internet security programs.

 

I suggest reading the first few posts at top in the Malware forum here and then start a thread there titled "suspicious browser object ".

 

I agree. It would be safe to rule out the possibility of Malware being involved.

 

Yes, it should appear as an add-on in IE.
But the popups you receive may or may not be malware related.

There is code a Webmaster can add to the page that displays an alert or popup to viewers prompting them to download Flash if they don't have it installed or prompt them to upgrade Flash to a recent version required to view the Flash content on the page.

But if have the most recent version then you should not get any popup warnings or alerts. If you do then the cause is either malware or a misconfigured browser. (misconfigured includes add-ons settings for Flash as well as security setting made in the browser by 3rd party security programs like Norton Internet Security and others)

Rule out malware first and continue to t-shoot.

 

I would post a new thread in the Malware and Virus Removal Forum to make sure that your computer is clean of malware. Once malware has been ruled out then we can move on to making sure your browser hasn't been misconfigured with Flash Player.