(Redirected from Browser Plugins)
Adobe Flash Player is a Lightweight plug-in for browsers used for streaming video, audio and other multimedia content on Adobe Flash sites and platforms. For Chrome users, there is no need to install Adobe Flash as it comes with its own version called NPAPI pre-installed. I'm running a fairly fresh arch install. I've tried pacman -S gnash-gtk but this doesn't work How do I get midori or any other browser to play flash videos (youtube, Iplayer, etc).
There are two types of browser plugins, based on the plugin API they use:
- Netscape plugin API (NPAPI): these plugins work in most smaller browsers (Firefox supports only the Flash Player plugin, Chromium and Opera do not support these plugins).
- Pepper plugin API (PPAPI): these plugins work in Chromium (and Chrome), Opera and Vivaldi.
Most plugins on this page are NPAPI-only, unless noted otherwise.
- 1Flash players
- 1.1Adobe Flash Player
- 2PDF viewer
- 10Troubleshooting
Flash players
Adobe Flash Player
Installation
The package you will need to install depends on the browser you use.
- The NPAPI version can be installed with the flashplugin package.
- The PPAPI version can be installed with the pepper-flash package.
- Some Flash apps may require the ttf-ms-fontsAUR package in order to properly render text.
- The freshplayerpluginAUR package provides an experimental adapter to use pepper-flash with NPAPI based browsers like Firefox. It can be configured (e.g. for enabling HW-acceleration) by copying
/usr/share/freshplayerplugin/freshwrapper.conf.example
to~/.config/freshwrapper.conf
.
Upgrade
If you are using Firefox, please make sure to follow this instruction first.
Configuration
To change the preferences (privacy settings, resource usage, etc.) of Flash Player, right click on any embedded Flash content (for instance adobe's flash home) and choose Settings from the menu.
You can also use the Flash settings file
/etc/adobe/mms.cfg
. Gentoo has an extensively commented example mms.cfg.To enable video decoding with hardware video acceleration (NPAPI-only), add/uncomment the following line:
It might also be required to add/uncomment the following line:
Multiple monitor full-screen fix
When using a multiple monitor setup, or swapping between virtual desktops, it is possible to lose focus on a fullscreen flash window. In such a case, the adobe flash-plugin will automatically exit full-screen mode. This may not be to your liking.
Unfortunately, this behavior is hard coded into the binary. In order to change this behavior it is necessary to alter the binary.
Fixing this issue only works for the NPAPI plugin and this issue can be fixed via 2 ways.
- Using the flashplugin-focusfixAUR.
- Patching manually:
- After the package has been installed, backup
libflashplayer.so
:
- Then, you will need to alter that file using a hex editor like ghex. You must open it with root privileges obviously.
- Using the hex editor find the string
_NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW
. In ghex the readable string is on the right hand side of the window, and the hex is on the left, you are trying to locate the readable string. It should be easy to find using a search function.
- Upon finding
_NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW
rewrite the line, but do not change the length of the line, for example_NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW
becomes_XET_ACTIVE_WINDOW
.
- Save the binary, and restart any processes using the plugin (as this will crash any instance of the plugin in use.)
Playing DRM-protected content
See Flash DRM content.
Gnash
Gnash is a free (libre) alternative to Adobe Flash Player. It is available both as a standalone player for desktop computers and embedded devices, as well as a browser plugin, and supports the SWF format up to version 7 (with versions 8 and 9 under development) and about 80% of ActionScript 2.0.
There is a packages available: gnash-gitAUR.
Lightspark
Lightspark is another attempt to provide a free alternative to Adobe Flash aimed at supporting newer Flash formats. Lightspark has the ability to fall back on Gnash for old content, which enables users to install both and enjoy wider coverage. Although it is still very much in development, it supports some popular sites.
Lightspark can be installed with the lightspark-gitAUR package.
PDF viewer
PDF.js
PDF.js is a PDF renderer created by Mozilla and built using HTML5 technologies.
It is included in Firefox.
For Chromium and Google Chrome it is available as extension in the Chrome Web Store.
External PDF viewers
To use an external PDF viewer you need #MozPlugger.
If you want to use MozPlugger with Evince, for example, you have to find the lines containing
pdf
in the /etc/mozpluggerrc
file and modify the corresponding line after GV()
as below:(replace
evince
with something else if it is not your viewer of choice).When using Firefox, you may need to change 2 values in
about:config
:- Change
pdfjs.disabled
's value to true; - Change
plugin.disable_full_page_plugin_for_types
's value to an empty value.
Then restart Firefox to use the plugin.
UnionPay Online Pay
![How How](/uploads/1/2/5/7/125744597/724061758.jpg)
Note: This plugin is NPAPI-only and thus does not work in Chromium, Opera and Firefox.
InstallupeditorAUR package for the 'security plugin' used by UnionPay Online Pay (银联在线支付).
Citrix
See Citrix.
Java (IcedTea)
Note: Both Java plugins are NPAPI-only and thus do not work in Chromium, Opera and Firefox.
To enable Java support in your browser, you have two options: the open-source OpenJDK (recommended) or Oracle's proprietary version. For details about why OpenJDK is recommended see [1].
To use OpenJDK, you have to install the IcedTea browser plugin, icedtea-web.
If you want to use Oracle's JRE, install the jreAUR package.
Pipelight
See Pipelight.
Multimedia playback
Many browsers support the GStreamer framework to play multimedia inside HTML5
<audio>
and <video>
elements. Check the optional dependencies of the browser package (or of the web engine, e.g. webkit2gtk or qt5-webkit) to see if GStreamer is supported. See GStreamer#Installation for the description of each plugin.For media formats that are not natively supported by your browser (e.g. most browsers don't play
.mkv
files), the following plugins are available:- Rosa Media Player Plugin — Qt-based NPAPI plugin that uses MPlayer as backend.
- https://abf.rosalinux.ru/uxteam/ROSA_Media_Player || rosa-media-player-pluginAUR
- VLC Plugin — NPAPI plugin that uses VLC as backend.
- https://code.videolan.org/videolan/npapi-vlc || npapi-vlcAUR
Google Hangouts
Note: This plugin is not required when using Chromium or Firefox
Hangouts plugin can be installed with the google-talkpluginAUR package.Hangouts is a messenger by Google, that allows you to make video call between 15 people simultaneously, or share your screen with others.
MozPlugger
MozPlugger can be installed with the mozpluggerAUR package.
MozPlugger is a Mozilla plugin which can show many types of multimedia inside your browser. To accomplish this, it uses external programs such as MPlayer, xine, Evince, OpenOffice, TiMidity, etc. To modify or add applications to be used by MozPlugger just modify the
/etc/mozpluggerrc
file.For example, MozPlugger uses OpenOffice by default to open
doc
files. To change it to use LibreOffice instead, look for the OpenOffice section:and add LibreOffice at the beginning of the list:
Note: Be sure to also choose LibreOffice as your preferred application to open
doc
files.As another simple example, if you want to open
cpp
files with your favorite text editor (we will use Kate) to get syntax highlighting, just add a new section to your mozpluggerrc
file:To change the default of MPlayer so that mpv is used instead, change the appropriate lines such that:
For a more complete list of MozPlugger options see mozplugger(7).
Troubleshooting
Flash Player: no sound
Flash Player outputs its sound only through the default ALSA device, which is number 0. If you have multiple sound devices (a very common example is having a sound card and HDMI output in the video card), then your preferred device may have a different number.
For a list of available devices with their respective numbers, run:
In this case, the HDMI output is
card 0
and the sound card is card 1
. To make your sound card the default for ALSA, create the file .asoundrc
in your home directory, with the following content:Flash Player: blocking sound for other applications or delayed playback
If sound is delayed within Flash videos or Flash stops sound from any other application, then make sure you do not have
snd_pcm_oss
module loaded:You can unload it:
and restart the browser to see if it helps.
Flash Player: performance
Adobe's Flash plugin has some serious performance issues, especially when CPU frequency scaling is used. There seems to be a policy not to use the whole CPU workload, so the frequency scaling governor does not clock the CPU any higher. To work around this issue, see CPU frequency scaling#Switching threshold
Flash Player: black bars in full screen playback on multi-headed setups
The Flash plugin has a known bug where the full screen mode does not really work when you have a multi-monitor setup. Apparently, it incorrectly determines the full screen resolution, so the full screen Flash Player fills the correct monitor but gets scaled as if the monitor had the resolution of the total display area.
To fix this, you can use the 'hack' described here. Simply download the source from the link given on the page, and follow the instructions in the README.
Note: While the author mentions using NVDIA's TwinView, the hack should work for any multi-monitor setup.
![Install adobe flash player arch linux Install adobe flash player arch linux](/uploads/1/2/5/7/125744597/940362844.png)
Firefox: old Flash Player version shown after upgrade
Solution for Firefox: delete file 'pluginreg.dat' in user's profile directory.
- Close firefox
- Go to
/home/<username>/.mozilla/firefox/<profile_folder>/
- Delete file 'pluginreg.dat'
Firefox will automatically rebuild this file once it is started again. Make sure to substitute <username> and <profile_folder> with the appropriate information.
Firefox: plugins are installed but not working
A common problem is that the plugin path is unset. This typically occurs on a new install, when the user has not re-logged in before running Firefox after the installation. Test if the path is unset:
If unset, then either re-login, or source
/etc/profile.d/mozilla-common.sh
and start Firefox from the same shell:Retrieved from 'https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php?title=Browser_plugins&oldid=584979'