Guide To Installing And Fixing Firefox Flash Plugins

Guide To Installing And Fixing Firefox Flash Plugins
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Add Flash to Firefox!

To get the most out of your web browsing, you will probably find that Flash offers a rich experience, bringing certain websites to life and making other sites more and more functional.

Certainly Flash has become more widely used than simply for music and video content over the past few years – it is also used as a mechanism for uploading files to blogs and social networking sites. As a result, your browser needs to support this type of content more and more.

Firefox doesn’t natively support Flash – however you can download a Firefox Flash plugin (one of many Firefox extensions) which will allow you to view this type of web content.

Download and Install the Firefox Flash Plugin

If you’re on a web page that requires a Flash player to display the content, you will be greeted by a message advising you of this. Simply follow the on-screen instructions to get the Flash player plugin installed.

However, you can also visit addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox and select from a variety of useful plugins from Adobe (as well as Microsoft, Apple and Sun). To install the Adobe Flash Player, click the Download Now link, which will take you to the Adobe website. Here you will need to click another Download Now link, but also look out for the instruction to download McAfee Security Scan Plus – you might opt not to do this.

In the following screen you will need to allow the plugin to be downloaded – simply click the Allow button in the yellow bar. Then choose Install Now in the new box that appears. If you are running Windows Vista or Windows 7, you will need to click Continue in the User Account Control warning box.

Once this has completed, click the Restart Firefox button in the Firefox Add-ons window. Firefox will then restart, attempting to restore all of your open tabs.

Adobe Download Manager has now been installed and this will automatically download and install Flash player.

Problems With Adobe Download Manager

Some users have problems with the Adobe Download Manager – often this tool fails to complete its own installation, and sometimes that of the programs it is supposed to be downloading. In order to resolve this, in Firefox go to Tools > Add-ons > Extensions and uninstall Adobe DLM (powered by getPlus) (this may not be present). Also look for Tools > Add-ons > Plugins and find and delete Adobe getPlus, and browse to the installation directory (typically C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\plugins) and delete np_gp.dll.

Finally, go to Start > Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs (Start > Control Panel > Uninstall a program in Windows 7) and uninstall the Adobe Download Manager.

But hang on – how are you going to view Flash content without the Firefox Flash plugin?

In this instance, use this direct link to download the Flash Player executable and install it manually.

Screenshot by author courtesy of Adobe Flash Player.