Scratch

Im not sure if its just my computer or not, but recently (within the past month) my flash player has gradually stopped working. It now just shows the thumbnail image in the box where the game should be, and it doesnt start or show the green flag/stop button. basically it just shows the first image and does nothing.  I've had to switch back to java player instead of the flash player. has anyone else had this problem?  It's kinda annoying because java player is pretty slow and laggy