Administrative, Technology and Society

So What’s The Deal With Firefox 3.5 And Flash?

22 Comments

I’ve to 3.5 now with the Fedora 11 upgrade. I thought that 3.5 was supposed to have flash embedded, but when I go to a web site that requires it, it tells me to install flash. I’ve installed flash from the Adobe site, and my installer says it’s installed, but it doesn’t show up as a plugin to Firefox. Anyone know what the deal is?

22 thoughts on “So What’s The Deal With Firefox 3.5 And Flash?”

  1. I recently had the same problem installing Flash on Windows XP. It turned out the best thing to do was to uninstall all Adobe products and then install Flash. I then reinstalled Reader, etc and everything works. I don’t know what happened but maybe Adobe screwed up their latest version of Flash. They are annoying at pushing so many updates.

  3. I’m not using Firefox so I don’t know. All I know is that Flash suddenly quit working. Apparently, one of Adobe’s “helpful” upgrades removed the older version. When I went to Adobe to install the new version, the install said everything was fine but Flash wasn’t there. The install repeatedly failed to work until I uninstalled every Adobe product on my computer.

  4. Well, that’s an entirely different problem than I’m having. I can install Flash without complaints from the OS, and it says it’s installed, but Firefox doesn’t see it as a plugin. Plus, Firefox 3.5 isn’t supposed to need it.

  5. Firefox 3.5 supports open video standards, but Flash is still needed for sites that use it. See if there is Firefox Flash plugin in the Fedora sources. I think in Fedora it’s called Software Management?

  6. I’ve never been able to get any web browser to recognize Flash on my Linux netbook. Ever. Firefox 3.x, Konqueror, Opera, whatever — nada.

  8. I also just had the same issue on a SUSE box I just installed. In my case it turned out that the issue had to do with the fact that I was using a 64 bit kernel and firefox. To fix the issue I had to download the experimental 64 bit library for flash, which is available off their website.

  11. The last time I upgraded Ubuntu I had to reinstall Flash separately off Adobe’s site for it to work, but now it works fine. However, I usually turn off embedded flash aps (like Youtube) because they seem to hang Firefox worse in the Linux version — I never had that problem with Windows. (Then again, the last Windows computer I had had more RAM and a dual processor and so on than my current laptop.)

  12. My 2¢:

    64-bit for servers and for desktops that run Maya or FEA or CFD, but 32 bit for normal desktops for the sake of compatibility. Also, installing Flash as the root user has caused problems for me and for my friends, but installing Flash using the regular user account that I use for browsing works great on my Fedora. I rarely have Flash problems; it’s pretty rock solid.

    Also, I avoid mounting root on an LVM; I use a 3ware sata raid card for speed and redundancy instead.

  14. Pingback: So What’s The Deal With Firefox 3.5 And Flash? | Adobe Tutorials

  15. Can you hear the siren call of Ubuntu, Rand? I think it’s getting louder. I abandonded FC for U about two years ago, never looked back. Honestly, from certain things observed here and there I think there’s a funky culture inside RH that makes me not want to buy stock. Turn to the Dark Side!

  16. FWIW I used to be a Fedora user and my boss(!) convinced me to switch to Ubuntu. I had been persuaded to attempt to use Debian before but the sedate development pace there turned me off. Ubuntu solves that issue. apt-get is great though.

  19. +1 on Ubuntu. It is well polished and has a good support following.

    I tried 64bit version on Dell Optiplex 620 and it ran like ass. 32bit edition ran circles around it when it came to doing mundane end user tasks: web-browsing, music, open office, blah blah. You lose performance in a 64bit O/S because it has to constantly thunk back down to 32bit code. Most common end user apps are compiled in 32bit, like Firefox for example. It is like putting a big motor in front of a dinky transmission. It might do good for some drag races here and there but otherwise a pain to deal with as a daily drive.

  20. Josh,

    That’s why real men use Gentoo Linux amd64! It got to be too much of pain to me, though, and a few months ago switched from 64-bit Gentoo to 32-bit Ubuntu. Been happy ever since.

  21. Why is it that every time someone posts about a problem they’re having with a specific linux setup, 4 out of 5 replies are about a completely different distro and how they are not having the same problem?

    It makes it a complete horror try to find real solutions to problems people have when only thing people can suggest is install something else.

    I’m having the same problem as the original poster except the couple of solutions actually suggested here didn’t work for me and to my utter annoyance all searches for Fedora 11 and Firefox 3.5 end up with a herd of drooling fanboys saying how fantastic their alternative distro is (just look at the above thread) without giving any worthwhile information and still people wonder why Linux isn’t making any progress on the desktop!

    Here’s a hint to all you distro fanboys:
    If a problem doesn’t concern you or your distribution, you’re not adding any useful information by saying what distro you’re running and that you’re not having the same problem. The only thing you’re providing is annoyance to people that are looking for a solution to a problem and in the long run only giving people that might be considering linux as a desktop OS a reason to stick with Windows or whatever.

    In simple terms: If you can’t be helpful, keep your mouth shut when people ask questions.

  22. It makes it a complete horror try to find real solutions to problems people have when only thing people can suggest is install something else.

    Then you’re really not going to like this: I got Flash working on my netbook by switching to Kubuntu.

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