Install the Flash plugin to view videos, animations and games
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- Creator: Michael Verdi
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Adobe Flash Player is a plugin that allows browsers such as Firefox to display Flash media on web pages. Flash is often used for animations, videos and games. This article explains how to install Flash.
Table of Contents
Installing Flash using the Plugin Finder Service
If you don't have Flash installed you may see a yellow info bar with an OS XLinux. To install Flash, skip to the next section, Installing the Flash plugin manually.
button. This is the Plugin Finder Service and it won't work on - Go to a page that uses Flash such as Adobe's test page.
- A yellow notification bar will appear above the webpage. Click
. The Plugin Finder Service window will appear. - Select the most recent version of Flash listed, then click
. - Click the check box next to I have read and agree to the terms of the license agreement and then click the
- If Windows asks to allow Adobe Flash Player to make changes to your computer, click .
button that will become activated, to begin installation. - When the installation is done, click
. The page will reload and you should have Flash installed.
Installing the Flash plugin manually
- Go to Adobe's Flash Player download page and download the Flash installer. Caution: Adobe's download page may include a checkbox for optional software (such as Google Chrome or McAfee Security Scan) that is selected by default. If you do not clear the checkbox before downloading, that software will be installed on your computer when you open the Flash installer.
- When the download has finished, close Firefox. Click the Firefox menu and select .Click the Firefox menu at the top of the screen and select .Click the Firefox menu and select .
- Open the Flash installer file you downloaded and follow the instructions.
Note: If you are having problems with the Flash installer from Adobe's download page, you can use this Flash Player installer link to directly download the full installer.
- Go to Adobe's Flash Player download page and download the Flash installer.
- Click the Firefox menu and select .Click the Firefox menu at the top of the screen and select .Click the Firefox menu and select .
- Open the file you downloaded (i.e. install_flash_player_osx_intel.dmg).
- In the Finder, open the Install Adobe Flash Player.app to run the installer, then follow the installer's instructions.
- Go to Adobe's Flash Player download page.
- When prompted, save the file (i.e. install_flash_player_"version"_linux."processor".tar.gz).
- Click the Firefox menu and select .Click the Firefox menu at the top of the screen and select .Click the Firefox menu and select .
- Open a Terminal window (in Gnome, click on the menu, select , and then select .)
- In the Terminal window, change to the directory where you saved the file you downloaded (e.g. cd /home/user/Downloads).
- Extract libflashplayer.so from the file you downloaded with the command tar -zxvf install_flash_player_"version"_linux."processor".tar.gz.
- As the super user, copy the extracted file, libflashplayer.so, to your Firefox installation directory's plugins sub-directory. For example, if Firefox is installed in /usr/lib/mozilla, use the command sudo cp libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins and then enter your super user password when prompted.
Keeping Flash up-to-date
The latest version of the Flash plugin should perform better and crash less often. To check if Flash is up to date, visit Mozilla's Plugin Check page. If it says that Flash needs to be updated, install the latest version manually using the steps in the section above.
Troubleshooting the Flash plugin
See Flash Plugin - Keep it up to date and troubleshoot problems for steps to troubleshoot the Flash plugin and keep it up to date.