Use Google Chrome Built-In Flash In Firefox For (Probably) Less Crashes

I had some issues with Adobe Flash crashing very often using the latest Firefox 4 so I've searched for a way to fix this and found a topic on AskUbuntu which says to use Chrome's Flash plugin in Chromium so I though - why not do it for Firefox? - and it's actually working quite well for now.

Chrome uses a built-in Adobe Flash plugin which seems to work better then the regular Flash. But there's a catch: you must install Chrome (and keep it updated if you want further Flash updates) even if you don't use it.

Use the built-in Chrome Flash plugin in Firefox

1. Download and install Google Chrome (I for one prefer the unstable branch but I guess any version will do)

2. Open a terminal and copy / paste the following commands:

mkdir -p ~/.mozilla/plugins
ln -s /opt/google/chrome/libgcflashplayer.so ~/.mozilla/plugins/

3. Restart Firefox.

The exact same instructions above also work for Chromium (yes, using the ~/.mozilla/plugins/ folder even though it's for Chromium).

Note: I've tested this with the latest Firefox 4 32bit only (and Chromium 32bit)! It should work with older Firefox versions too though.

What other "tricks" do you use to improve Flash performance under Linux? Let us know in the comments!

Fix Pink / Red YouTube Videos Bug Using Flash 10.2 In Ubuntu

A lot of people are experiencing red/pink tint on YouTube videos starting yesterday. The cause seems to be a combination of Flash 10.2, a recent YouTube change and the users graphics cards and seems to be browser-independent (can occur in Firefox 3.x, Firefox 4 beta as well as Chrome / Chromium). Here are some solutions which will hopefully fix the red YouTube videos bug.

Possible fix 1:

Multiple users have reported that blocking the YouTube cookies solves the red YouTube videos issue. Unfortunately this means you won't be able to log in to YouTube.

Firefox: To block the YouTube cookies go to Preferences, on the Privacy tab click "Exceptions", under "Address of the site" enter "www.youtube.com" (or the YouTube domain for your country if you do not use YouTube.com) and click "Block".

Chrome/Chromium: go to Preferences, on the "Under the hood" tab click on "Content settings" and under "Cookies" click "Manage exceptions". Then add "www.youtube.com" under "Pattern" (or the YouTube domain for your country if you do not use YouTube.com) and under "Behavior" select "Block".

Possible fix 2 (64bit only):

64bit users who have installed Adobe Flash from the Sevenmachines Ubuntu PPA have reported they do not have the red/pink YouTube videos issue.

Possible fix 3 (disable Adobe Flash hardware acceleration):

Open a terminal and copy/paste the following commands:

sudo mkdir /etc/adobe
sudo bash -c "echo 'OverrideGPUValidation = 0' >> /etc/adobe/mms.cfg"

The following should be the same as the above fix, but since some users reported that only the below solution works for them, here is another way of disabling Adobe Flash hardware acceleration:

Right click a flash animation - this doesn't work with YouTube so you'll have to right click something like this site, then select "Settings" and uncheck the "Enable hardware acceleration box" like in the screenshot below:

Thanks to HenryKupfer for this tip!

Possible fix 4:

If everything else fails, you can try to either downgrade Adobe Flash player:

32bit:

wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/multiverse/f/flashplugin-nonfree/flashplugin-installer_10.1.85.3ubuntu1_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i flashplugin-installer_10.1.85.3ubuntu1_i386.deb

64bit:

wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/multiverse/f/flashplugin-nonfree/flashplugin-installer_10.1.85.3ubuntu1_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i flashplugin-installer_10.1.85.3ubuntu1_amd64.deb

And then lock the Flashplugin-installer version in Synaptic and wait until YouTube / Flash 10.2 is fixed.

Or try the latest Adobe Flash Player 11 preview release (available only for 32bit).

Another solution is to enable HTML5 for YouTube and watch the videos without Flash. Unfortunately this won't work for all videos.

I've listed multiple solutions because I am not affected by this bug even though I use Adobe Flash Player 10.2. Are you experiencing the red YouTube videos bug? How did you manage to fix it?

Fixes thanks to Chimerarevo & Ubuntuforums | First screenshot via solomongaby @ AskUbuntu

First Adobe Flash Player 11 "Incubator" Preview Available For Download

Adobe announced the Adobe AIR and Flash Player Incubator program a few days ago. This is a place where the Adobe team shares features under development or experimental with the community so they can test it and give feedback.

The first Adobe Flash Player build has already landed in the "Incubator" - but please note that this is a preview release so only use it for testing purposes. This release brings Cubic bezier curves (using the cubicCurveTo drawing API, developers can easily create cubic beziers without requiring custom ActionScript code) and new 3D APIs:

Today, Adobe Flash Player 10.1, renders thousands of non z-buffered triangles at approximately 30 Hz. With the new 3D APIs, developers can expect hundreds of thousands of z-buffered triangles to be rendered at HD resolution in full screen at around 60 Hz.

Download Adobe Flash Player Incubator Preview release (11.0.0.58) - downloads available for Windows, Linux and Mac OSX

Adobe Flash Player 10.2 Released, Brings Stage Video Hardware Acceleration (32bit only)

Adobe Flash Player 10.2 was released yesterday with a new Stage Video API which lets you take advantage of hardware acceleration (if your video card supports it).

In my tests, using Adobe Flash Player 10.2 (still in beta at the time I've tested it) the processor usage for 1080p YouTube videos dropped from ~90% to around 20-30%. A while back we've published a post on how to take advantage of hardware acceleration for Adobe Flash Player 10.2 in Ubuntu (including a video show the performance with and without hardware acceleation) so check out that post for more info on this.

Flash Player 10.2 also comes with various CPU usage enhancements, multiple display support for full screen, native mouse cursors you can use in your applications as well as sub-pixel text rendering.

Unfortunately, this release is available for 32bit only, however a preview release is available for 64bit users.

Note for Ubuntu users: Adobe Flash Player has already been uploaded to the Ubuntu repositories so to upgrade to the latest version, all you have to do is run the following commands:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

Download Adobe Flash Player 10.2 (32bit only - includes .deb and .rpm files; preview version for 64bit)

[via Lifehacker]

Adobe Flash Player 10.2 Beta Brings Better Performance For Video Playback

Adobe Flash Player 10.2 beta was released today with preliminary support for Stage Video which is supposed to reduce the performance impact while playing back video content across all platforms. The new version also brings enhanced text rendering, and two popular requests from the community: a native custom mouse cursors API and support for full screen playback with multiple monitors.

You can read the full release announcement, HERE.

Unfortunately, the new Adobe Flash Player 10.2 beta does not come with 64bit packages. A note on the Adobe labs page states that:

The Flash Player 10.2 beta does not replace the Flash Player "Square" preview release.

Flash Player "Square" preview release does come with 64bit packages so hopefully when 10.2 final will be out, it will include 64bit downloads.

Download Adobe Flash Player 10.2 beta

Thanks to StoneCut for the tip!

Adobe Flash Player "Square" (10.2.x) 64bit Ubuntu PPA

The Sevenmachines Adobe Flash Player 64bit PPA for Ubuntu has just been updated with the latest Adobe Flash Player "Square" 10.2.161.22 (64bit obviously) for Ubuntu 9.10, 10.04 and 10.10 so now it's even easier to install it!

Important: Adobe Flash Player "Square" is a development preview version! Use at your own risk.

To install Adobe Flash Player "Square" 10.2.161.22 in Ubuntu, run the following commands in a terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:sevenmachines/flash
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install flashplugin64-installer

Adobe Finally Releases A New Adobe Flash Player 64bit - Yes, For Linux Too!

If a while back Adobe wasn't very interested in its 64bit Linux users and discontinued Adobe Flash Player 10.1 for 64bit, the new Adobe Flash Player 10.2 codename "Square" developer preview released by Adobe today is also available for 64bit Linux systems (and obviously, 32bit too).

To install Adobe Flash Player 10.2 "Square" developer preview in Linux (Ubuntu), download it, extract the archive and place the "libflashplayer.so" file into "/usr/lib/adobe-flashplugin/" (make a backup of the old file first) - you'll have to run Nautilus as root for this, so press ALT + F2 and enter:

gksu nautilus /usr/lib/adobe-flashplugin/

If that folder does not exist, see also: /usr/lib/flashplugin-installer/ or /usr/lib/flashplugin-nonfree/ (the installation folder depends on how you've installed Adobe Flash Player).

Have you tried the new Flash Player? How is it working for you?

Download Adobe Flash Player 10.2 "Square" developer preview (Available for Linux, Windows and Mac OSX - both 32bit and 64bit)

Update: the new Adobe Flash Player "Square" (10.2.x) 64bit is available in a PPA for Ubuntu 9.10, 10.04 and 10.10

Adobe Flash Player 10.1 RC 4 Is Out

To install the latest Flash Player 10.1 release candidate 4 (released yesterday) in Ubuntu (32 bit only):

1. Download Flash Player 10.1 RC 4:

wget http://download.macromedia.com/pub/labs/flashplayer10/flashplayer10_1_rc4_linux_050510.tar.gz
tar -xvf flashplayer10_1_rc4_linux_050510.tar.gz

Or manually download it from HERE.

2. Install Flash Player RC in Linux

I already wrote how to install it (copy/paste commands), HERE so continue from there (no point in writing the same thing again).

Thanks to Paulo!

Adobe Flash Player 10.1 Beta 2 Released

A "flash"back from the future is displayed on the Adobe Labs website. It reads:

At Adobe MAX 2009, Adobe unveiled the next release of Adobe Flash Player that realizes the promise of a consistent, cross-platform runtime across desktop and mobile devices. Flash Player 10.1 beta 2 was released on December 17, 2010 and is available for download.

To see what's new, visit this page.


So if you want to download this Adobe Flash Player 10.1 beta 2 which apparently is to be released on December 17, 2010 but don't want to wait till then (joking), download Flash Player 10.1 beta 2 from HERE. Of course, this is only available for 32bit, as the 64bit Adobe Flash Plugin is still in Alpha (for Linux I mean).

To install Adobe Flash Player 10.1 Beta 2 in Linux:

1. Go to /usr/lib/adobe-flashplugin/ or /usr/lib/flashplugin-installer (it depends on how you installed Adobe Flash Player) and rename libflashplayer.so to libflashplayer.so.old. Please note that to do this using Nautilus, you must open it as root:

Press Alt + F2 and enter:

gksu nautilus

If you want to do it using a terminal, simply:

-for /usr/lib/adobe-flashplugin/:

sudo mv /usr/lib/adobe-flashplugin/libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/adobe-flashplugin/libflashplayer.so.old

-for /usr/lib/flashplugin-installer:

sudo mv /usr/lib/flashplugin-installer/libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/flashplugin-installer/libflashplayer.so.old

The reason for renaming the old flashplayer to .old is that if the new Flash Player 10.1 beta 2 doesn't work properly, you can always go back to the previous version.

2. Extract the archive and copy the file called libflashplayer.so from the archive you just extracted, to the /usr/lib/adobe-flashplugin or /usr/lib/flashplugin-installer folder.

Terminal alternative:

wget http://download.macromedia.com/pub/labs/flashplayer10/flashplayer10_1_p2_linux_121709.tar.gz
tar -xvf flashplayer10_1_p2_linux_121709.tar.gz && cd install_flash_player_10_linux/

Then, depending on the location of your libflashplayer.so file:

-for /usr/lib/adobe-flashplugin/:

sudo mv libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/adobe-flashplugin

-for /usr/lib/flashplugin-installer:

sudo mv libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/flashplugin-installer

[via reddit]

New Version Of Adobe Flash Player 10 For 64bit (Linux) Is Available

A new alpha version of Adobe Flash Player 10 for 64bit Linux is available for download. Before installing it, it is advisable to make a backup copy of the old Flash Player version:

sudo mv /usr/lib/flashplugin-installer/libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/flashplugin-installer/libflashplayer.so.old

Then, to install the new version, extract the downloaded archive (download link at the end of the post), use the terminal to navigate to where you extracted it and run this command (this assumes you have a symbolic link in /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/ for /usr/lib/flashplugin-installer/ libflashplayer.so) :

sudo cp libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/flashplugin-installer/

If you don't have a libflashplayer.so symbolic link in /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/, also run this command (thanks to JellyKernel):

sudo cp libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/

Download the new Alpha version of Adobe Flash Player 10 for Linux 64bit | More info

[via omg ubuntu]