Having Problems with Flash Videos Working in Mozilla Firefox?
Recently, Adobe Flash Player updated to a new Flash Player 11 version… and Firefox Ver. 13.0.1 just did not seem to like it. I read through a lot of forums which was a lot of opinions of “why this” and “they don’t like that”… basically, internet politics and propriety bullshit.
I just want the damn flash videos to be able to play in Firefox (i.e. YouTube and other flash-formatted videos). I do use Chrome, but I’m a two-browser person, so I use Chrome for some of my internet sites and functions, and I use Firefox for others. Motley News and Photos is a Firefox function as are all the blogs I subscribe to. And the ONLY time I use IE is at work because our reservation system was built by some idiot developers who created it to only work in the back end (admin) in Internet Explorer. Sorry Mac and Linux users, this company (cough cough SignUp4) decided to develop proprietary only.
Primarily, I read enough to figure out the Firefox 13 and Adobe Flash Player 11 just do not play well together. So…. I got rid of Flash 11 and downloaded an archived version of Flash Player 10.3. Here are the steps, which are very simple and outlined so even a noobie can follow along…. Oh, these are steps for Windows 7 ONLY – XP will be similar. Linux people – you don’t need me, you know more than I do. Mac… you’re on you own.
You may click on any of the images to enlarge them for better viewing if you need to.
1. Need to UNinstall Flash 11 first.
• Click the little Win 7 icon in the bottom left of your main screen
• Now choose (click) “Control Panel” (below)
.
.
• Choose “Uninstall a Program” (below)
.
• Click on Adobe Flash Player 11 plugin (My snapshot below shows ver. 10 because I already uninstalled 11 and reinstall 10.3)
.
• Click “Uninstall” in the blue bar above your list of programs
• If Firefox is open, you’ll be prompted to close it. So… close it.
• The bad Flash Player is now bye-bye.
.
2. Download version 10.3 via THIS link which is an official Adobe site of all archived versions
• Scroll down below the chart until you see a list of versions and download links (see image below)
.
• I chose the top one “(Released 6/08/2012) Flash Player 10.3.183.20 (65.7 MB)”
• This will download as a ZIP file. If you do not have WinRAR, it would be a good idea to download that now, or better yet, before you begin this download procedure. Here is the link to download Windows version. Don’t worry about buying anything, just get the free version. Whenever you get the annoying little pop-up prompting you to buy it, just click “close” and proceed on.
• Unzip that puppy
• There are several zip files and executable files listed when you unzip the main file. I double-clicked on the executable file “flashplayer10_3r183_20win.exe” (see image below) and wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am…. Flash Player 10.3 is installed and you may now watch YouTube and other flash formatted videos in Firefox.
.
Any other updates, info fixes, etc. please feel free to comment. I don’t care for “fixes” and would just as soon these two work things out – get a professional counselor or something like that. But sometimes band-aids are necessary.
Top Posts
This problem can be solved by pre-school children in 5-10 minutes. By programmers in one hour.
Click on image to go to full problem
Motley News, Photos and Fun 
I’ve had the same problem too, and its also been a problem with the latest Opera browser. Its Adobe’s problem, that they put a shitty version of flash player.
Yup. That’s what I’m gathering since that was the last thing I updated when it came out. I’ve had Firefox 13 for a little while now, then Flash went gaa-gaa
You’re the first blogger I read who’s mentioned this problem Michelle. I was beginning to think I was the only one who had it. Having had similar problems with both of the most recent flash updates, I’ve used the steps you outlined twice now to roll my installation back to v11.2.202.233. That one seems to work just fine on my system. I hope they fix this soon, because I don’t like getting the “insecure software” alerts every time my Secunia PSI runs a scan!
Good. I’m glad you found a version that is working. The forums went back a few weeks, so Adobe better get their butts in gear and fix this.
I had the same problem. Mozilla suggests that you do Adobe 10.3 (which you did) but to ALSO go into your extensions/add-ons and disable your Real Player Record Plug-in 15.0.4. There are known issues with Flash (any version) and Real Player. Let me know if that helps. Cheers!
Peter
I had initially disabled all my add-ons first. Right now, though, I have my Real Player on, but the 10.3 version seems to be working fine.
What I’m really mourning is the passing of Vodpod, which allowed me to embed videos on WordPress when gigya isn’t enough. I know, I know, that’s not what you’re talking about, but it’s just frustrating that online video is still so difficult at times.
I miss it too. Lockerz just isn’t fitting the bill. In fact, it sucks. Gigya doesn’t work on everything….
Yeah, I’ve tried Lockerz several times before just giving up!
I use the browser Opera , and in the same period Adobe & Opera launched new versions, much inferior to the previous versions.
Now I want to return to previous versions
Really? I downloaded Opera, oh, about a year ago and I couldn’t get it to work right. But then, I didn’t try very hard. But had problems from the get-go so I uninstalled it. Interesting….
Thank you so much. I have been struggling with this issue all day.
Did you get the notice for the latest Flash update yet Michelle? Check out these comments from FileHippo, paying particular attention to the “workaround” tips for the still existing problems: http://www.filehippo.com/download_flashplayer_firefox/comments/ 😯
No I haven’t. Thanks! I’m not sure I want to mess with it as I seem to be able to watch everything in Firefox. Although on my laptop at work, it’s all f*d up.
My concern has to do with the so-called “security issues” that these updates are supposed to be “saving” us from. Of course if I’m reading that “workaround” correctly, it’s one of the latest “safety” measures that’s causing all the trouble and their fix is to prevent that part from working. Huh?!?! 😯