Flash not working

1

Yesterday I booted up my computer, and out of the blue, it said that I needed to install the activeX control for flash. I thought I already had flash, so I rebooted my comp, and now no flash will display. I can still test out swf files within the flash creator thing, and I can also play flash movies that are on my computer, but it won’t let me view any online flash. (for instance instead of seeing the kirupa symbol up top I just get a white box with the little red x in the corner). I tried reinstalling flash, it made not difference. So then I thought maybe if I uninstalled the flash activeX runtime thing in the add/remove programs it would help. Only when I click on change/remove, a black box flickers on the screen for about 2 milliseconds, and then nothing happens. I can’t uninstall the ■■■■ thing. Can somebody please help me?