# flashplayer in recent www/firefox



## YuryG (May 11, 2018)

I have www/flashplugin installed and www/firefox on i386. But in  Firefox about:plugins tab I see no Flash. Is it O.K. for now? Also the mentioning of Flash plugins is disappeared from Handbook chapter concerning Firefox.

```
> nspluginwrapper -v -l
List plugins in /usr/local/lib/browser_plugins
Looking for plugins in /usr/local/lib/browser_plugins
/usr/local/lib/browser_plugins/npwrapper.libflashplayer.so
  Original plugin: /usr/local/lib/browser_plugins/linux-flashplayer/libflashplayer.so
  Plugin viewer: /usr/local/lib/nspluginwrapper/i386/linux/npviewer
  Wrapper version string: 1.4.4-1
List plugins in /usr/local/lib/browser_plugins/linux-flashplayer
Looking for plugins in /usr/local/lib/browser_plugins/linux-flashplayer
List plugins in /usr/home/Alg/.mozilla/plugins
Looking for plugins in /usr/home/Alg/.mozilla/plugins
/usr/home/Alg/.mozilla/plugins/npwrapper.libflashplayer.so
  Original plugin: /usr/local/lib/browser_plugins/linux-flashplayer/libflashplayer.so
  Plugin viewer: /usr/local/lib/nspluginwrapper/i386/linux/npviewer
  Wrapper version string: 1.4.4-1
```


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## drhowarddrfine (May 11, 2018)

I have not paid any attention to Flash for years but no modern browser works with it anymore. Whether it can be forced by using www/flashplugin or not, I don't know, cause Flash is dead and, as a web developer, I don't pay attention to it anymore.


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## tobik@ (May 11, 2018)

Firefox doesn't support NPAPI plugins anymore. Maybe it'll still work with www/firefox-esr or www/palemoon for the time being. Not really sure.


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## abishai (May 13, 2018)

YuryG said:


> Is it O.K. for now?


It's O.K not to see flash in 2018. Seriously.


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## YuryG (May 16, 2018)

No, it is not O.K. There are many resources today that still use Flash. Interactive, tutorials or simple videos.
It's O.K. for me not to use it in my own works, but I cannot change what do others.
And, by the way, Flash is quite working on Windows up-to-date Firefox (not ESR!).


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## sidetone (May 16, 2018)

Flash belongs in the garbage can. Anything that requires it, is not worth using.

(I had to let that out, after all of the problems that it caused, and their refusal to fix anything) It's amazing, Adobe didn't go bankrupt, after their attitude about Flash player.


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## zirias@ (May 16, 2018)

YuryG said:


> No, it is not O.K. There are many resources today that still use Flash.


I didn't see any for a long time now. If you find websites still using flash, they're probably unmaintained. Flash will die anyways, quite soon. It already did for anyone using Android or Chrome / chromium.


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## YuryG (May 16, 2018)

By the way, the same Flash works for me in Firefox on amd64. (Well, works half the way: it drops npviewer.bin.core regularily, but sometimes it could be seen working.)
So, the reason of the question of the thread. Is it me (and where to dig to find the problem roots) or some common bug makes Flash not working on Firefox on i386?


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## YuryG (May 16, 2018)

Zirias said:


> …It already did for anyone using Android or Chrome / chromium.


Well, I have no good words for Google and its politics in the last decade. And this is not about Flash at all.


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## eax.qbyte (Oct 21, 2018)

YuryG said:


> By the way, the same Flash works for me in Firefox on amd64. (Well, works half the way: it drops npviewer.bin.core regularily, but sometimes it could be seen working.)
> So, the reason of the question of the thread. Is it me (and where to dig to find the problem roots) or some common bug makes Flash not working on Firefox on i386?


It is not you only, I have the same issue too, but as far as I know firefox and many other modern web browsers don't support flash any more. Firefox has a new core called quantum core and handles graphical 3d applications via webgl APIs. Many websites create their recent applications via webgl too. New versions of firefox with its new quantum core are much more reliable, faster, more powerful, and extremely compact in size rather than the old versions so that I recommend you to forget about flash and let the webgl handle your browser graphically. 
If you are using a hardware with a CPU speed less than 1.5Ghz (in my sight) flash player could still be your way to go.


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## drhowarddrfine (Oct 21, 2018)

eax.qbyte said:


> If you are using a hardware with a CPU speed less than 1.5Ghz (in my sight) flash player could still be your way to go.


Not if the browser won't support it and no browser supports Flash. Even Adobe won't support Flash anymore. Forget about it.


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## kpedersen (Oct 21, 2018)

If I ever need flash (haven't for ~3 years ) then I personally find that installing emulators/wine and installing an old-ish version of Mozilla Firefox from oldapps.com a really good way to go. Firefox 51 was the last one to support NPAPI plugins so grab that one.

You get largely native speed and it keeps that horrible stuff away from your normal web browser 

Even though Wine is not a sandbox, it provides some small amount of protection because it is foreign enough that Viruses and things that make certain assumptions about layout etc cannot always function properly.


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## shkhln (Oct 21, 2018)

kpedersen said:


> that make certain assumptions about layout



Note that "$WINEPREFIX/drive_c/users/$USER/My Documents" is symlinked to your $HOME directory. Relying on Wine to "sandbox" things is definitely not sufficient. Run it under a separate user account.


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## kpedersen (Oct 21, 2018)

shkhln said:


> Note that "$WINEPREFIX/drive_c/users/$USER/My Documents" is symlinked to your $HOME directory. Relying on Wine to "sandbox" things is definitely not sufficient. Run it under a separate user account.


True. I was thinking more about memory layout and being able to run shellcode.
Also things like modifying the registry to disable Windows defender, adding itself to startup and all that silly stuff is still "safe" in Wine.
But yep, I agree it is far from being an actual sandbox.

I personally run it as another user but mainly to avoid it trashing my xdg settings. Nothing more annoying than double clicking on a .cpp file and sodding Wine notepad opens up haha!


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## DenisVS (Mar 7, 2019)

Hi! What about installing the old version of the plugin to the browser?
My windows machine with firefox esr still works perfectly with flash player 14.0 due to some tricks in about:config.


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## amtrakuk (Mar 18, 2019)

A lot of people say flash is dead however I have been playing The Settlers Online (Flash intensive web based game) with both Windows and Linux for many years both working fine with Flash.  Now mid March 2019 Flash is still thriving.  Its a shame a lot of support forums "slam the door in your face" whilst giving all the same answer "Flash is dead" without even trying to offer a work around.   I'm trying an older build about a year ago of GhostBSD I used a while ago with flash.  I have the .so file and am hoping getting it up and running with an older build then applying the updates may get around the problem.


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## drhowarddrfine (Mar 18, 2019)

amtrakuk

Adobe and Browser Makers Announce the End of Flash in 2020

I've been running a web dev company for 15 years and we would not use Flash 10 years ago cause we saw the end coming.


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## amtrakuk (Jan 4, 2020)

drhowarddrfine said:


> amtrakuk
> 
> Adobe and Browser Makers Announce the End of Flash in 2020
> 
> I've been running a web dev company for 15 years and we would not use Flash 10 years ago cause we saw the end coming.



Yeah I understand Flash is a chicken and egg situation, some web designers wont pull Flash if Adobe keep pushing back the support date and the support date wont be finalised if there is still demand.  It would have been nice for flash to be available until the end of 2020 in line with Adobe when I believe ti will be unavailable to download from their website.


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## drhowarddrfine (Jan 5, 2020)

@amtr you must have a reeeeeeaallly slow Internet if you're just now getting this.

I have not seen flash on anything in years and I'd have to look but flash is removed from all of them now or it happens this year. Flash hasn't been brought up in any conversations I've had in many years


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## kpedersen (Jan 5, 2020)

Regardless of what Adobe supports when it comes to Flash; the more pragmatic issue is that users no longer have that ratty plugin installed.

So even if Adobe still supports flash for another 10 years; you would need to convince your users to install the Flash plugin. That is not an easy task. Especially now that browsers and phones actively discourage it.

However, I bet they wish they developed Settlers Online in HTML5 Emscripten now. Their user base must surely be suffering.


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## amtrakuk (Jan 13, 2020)

I worked out how to get it loaded with a combination of ports and pkg


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