Volume mixer + Adobe Flash + Windows 7 = freezing all browsers?

[justme]

There was an update to Adobe Flash sometime at the end of January (~1/24/14) and since then, anything that uses flash has been crashing any browser - Chrome, Firefox, IE, Opera. The browser either freezes up and I have to go to task manager to close the application or it still works and it doesn't show up in the volume mixer.

I've tried re-installing
* the browsers (current and previous)
* previous versions of flash
* sound drivers
* disabling pepper flash in Chrome

> Java is up-to-date
> Fiddled around with my registry

The only thing that seems to work is when i clear
* Hosted app data
* Content licenses
close my browser and/or restart which is a pain to have to do every single time.

My computer HD is new - put in a new HD around November 2013 and installed Win 7 on it.

Anyone else have/had this problem or have any suggestions to fix it?