[tor-talk] Help with Tor and Flash Player plugin struggle

numetro numetro at live.com
Thu Oct 4 23:37:00 UTC 2012


Hello tor-talk members,

I've now tried everything and I cannot get ANY Flash content to play in 
this Tor-Firefox ESR web browser, even though I've tried installing the 
Flash player plugin that this browser asks for when I'm on a YouTube 
page (and even though this computer already had a current Flash Player 
plugin installed previously).

Let me make it clear that privacy is not important to me _/*right now*/_ 
during this quest to make the Flash Player plugin work with this Tor 
browser... I can reset any settings for maximum privacy later when I go 
back to that purpose for using Tor... right now, I'm just trying to make 
the Tor browser play Flash content.

So even though I've /*UNCHECKED*/ the /*Torbutton>Preferences>Security 
Settings>Disable plugin during Tor usage*/ box, and I installed a new 
Flash player plugin /*THROUGH*/ this browser, and I even set it to allow 
all scripts because I thought maybe that was complicating things, /*IT 
STILL WILL NOT PLAY FLASH CONTENT OF ANY TYPE*/.

/*Now, this, explained below, could be part of the problem that I'd like 
to ask for your help with...*/

If I go to the Tor Browser folder on my hard drive at /*C:>Tor 
Browser>FirefoxPortable>Data>plugins*/ there are NO Flash plugin files 
that show up in that folder even after I install a new Flash Player 
plugin THROUGH this browser... I believe that is why it will not play 
Flash content.


All it does when I install a Flash Player plugin through this Tor 
browser is to overwrite my Windows 7 system Flash Player plugin, but it 
does not actually place any Flash Player plugin files in the /*C:>Tor 
Browser>FirefoxPortable>Data>plugins*/ folder, so that's why this 
PORTABLE version of the Firefox ESR browser will not play any Flash 
content... and it doesn't work from the Windows system Flash Player 
plugin the way that my normal Firefox (NON-TOR) web browser does.  My 
other Firefox web browser sees the the Windows system Flash Player 
plugin just fine and it does play Flash content correctly.

There is, however, one text file that comes stock inside the Tor browser 
plugins folder and when it is opened it says, /*"Place Firefox plugins 
in this directory (Flash, Shockwave, etc)"*/.


So with some advice from someone on the Adobe help forum, I tried 
copying the Flash Player plugin files from the Windows system folder at 
/*C:>Windows>System32>Macromed>Flash*/ in to the Tor browser plugins 
folder at /*C:>Tor Browser>FirefoxPortable>Data>plugins*/, and that 
still didn't work.

Note that I am closing and re-opening the Tor browser between each of 
these tests.

So I then followed some further advice from the expert on the Adobe help 
forum and I changed the name of the main Flash Player plugin file that I 
had copied and pasted in to the Tor browser plugins folder from 
/*"NPSWF32_11_4_402_278.dll"*/ to /*"NPSWF32.dll"*/, and that still did 
not work... note that I left all the other files that I copied and 
pasted from the Windows system Flash plugins folder with the same name 
they originally had... I tried only changing that one Flash plugin file 
name, as instructed by the expert on the Adobe help forum.

I also tried posting a question about this on the Mozilla Firefox forum, 
but no one there is able to answer this question.

What the problem seems to be is that when this Tor-Firefox ESR 10.0.7 
browser installs a Flash Player plugin, it just installs it to the 
Windows system folder /*(the same way that the normal (non-Tor) Firefox 
browser does)*/ and _/*NOT*/_  into the Tor-Firefox plugins folder 
/*C:>Tor Browser>FirefoxPortable>Data>plugins*/, as would be needed for 
it to be able to play Flash content.

No matter what I do, whenever I try to view a YouTube video or any Flash 
video in this browser, or any Flash graphic content at all, I get the 
yellow bar at the top of the page that says /*"Additional plugins are 
required to display all the media on this page - Install Missing 
Plugins"*/ and there is a banner displayed where the Flash content is 
supposed to be that says, /*"The Adobe Flash Player is required for 
video playback - Get the latest Flash Player"*/.

And as I explained at the top of this email, I have already installed 
and re-installed the Flash Player plugin on this computer multiple 
times, including doing it directly through this Tor-Firefox ESR browser 
itself.

/*So can ANYONE there tell me how to get the correct Flash Player plugin 
files in to the Tor-Firefox browser plugins folder at C:>Tor 
Browser>FirefoxPortable>Data>plugins, and where do I get those files?  
Everything I've tried, which is pretty extensive, has not worked, and it 
seems that someone there should know about this.*/

Thanks for your help,

numetro


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