Recently active topics in Adobe tagged with flash

Nothing happens when I click on the pop-up/pop-out button.

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-GB; rv:1.8.1.15) Gecko/20080625 Ubuntu/7.10 (gutsy) Firefox/2.0.0.15

I am trying to update Flash on my MacBook Pro (OSX 10.4.11). The install goes about 2/3 of the way through, then is unable to create 'the file' because 'You do not have the required access privileges.'

I'm the only user, this is my personal laptop. All browsers either came preinstalled or were installed/updated by me. I do not use a separate administrative account. What gives? How do I get Flash updated? The knowledge base article does not address the problem, since there are not any other users on this machine.