Adobe publishes beta of NPAPI Flash Player 23 for Linux

[xenopeek]

Adobe announced they will start support Flash Player on Linux again (support was stuck on Flash Player 11.2 and would have ended next year): https://blogs.adobe.com/flashplayer/201 ... linux.html. While you're getting the latest Flash Player you won't get all features implemented. For that you'll need to use Google Chrome's Flash Player.

This is probably welcome news for Firefox users on Linux though I caution those users that Firefox still doesn't sandbox plugins on Linux so I would discourage you from using Flash Player in Firefox. Google Chrome and Chromium do sandbox Google Chrome's Flash Player so I would just use either of those browsers if you need a Flash Player.

If you want to try it out on Linux Mint the steps are as follows. Be mindful this is a beta and you'll have to update it yourself manually when a new version is released.

• Uninstall the package adobe-flashplugin. You can do so with the command:
  apt purge adobe-flashplugin
• Next download the new libflashplayer.so file.
  • For 64-bit: https://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/l ... hplayer.so
  • For 32-bit: https://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/l ... hplayer.so
• Then open your file manager and toggle to display hidden files (from View menu or press Ctrl+H). From your home directory go to the directory .mozilla/firefox/<profile>.default (<profile> is some random string of letters and numbers) and create a new directory there called "plugins". Move or copy the downloaded libflashplayer.so here. Alternatively you can do it from the terminal by opening a terminal on the directory where you downloaded the libflashplayer.so file and running the commands:
  find ~/.mozilla/firefox/*.default -prune -exec mkdir {}/plugins \;
cp libflashplayer.so ~/.mozilla/firefox/*.default/plugins/
• Close any Firefox windows you still had open and start Firefox again. You can test your Flash Player version by going to https://www.adobe.com/nl/software/flash/about/.

[Lucap]

Because this change is primarily a security initiative, some features (like GPU 3D acceleration and premium video DRM) will not be fully implemented.

BAH!

British catch up television such as 4OD still doesn't work because of the lack of DRM but at least it should stop some sites nagging about an out of date version.

[Night Wing]

@xenopeek

Do you think the Mint maintainers will incorporate linux Flash 23 into the Mint repositories (where it will come to us via the Update Manager) instead of using the present linux Flash 11.2 version?

The reason I'm asking is, because I'm "not" a power user and I want to stay away from using the terminal as much as possible and all the other things that go along with it like creating a new directory within my profile. If something goes wrong, I'm "up the creek without a paddle heading for the waterfall".

[austin.texas]

The reason I'm asking is, because I'm "not" a power user and I want to stay away from using the terminal as much as possible and all the other things that go along with it like creating a new directory within my profile. If something goes wrong, I'm "up the creek without a paddle heading for the waterfall".

Come on now, Night Wing. Those are very clear and reasonably easy instructions.

[Pierre]

there is a surprising number of web sites, that still require the use of Adobe Flash.

However, almost all uses of Adobe Flash,
- are generally Advert or Movie.
some sites also seem to be able to bypass any Adobe Flash block
and still run those Movie, automatically - - no, they are not using HTML5

there is still a huge & potential security risk with using Adobe Flash.

[killer de bug]

I was hoping flash could simply die quietly without trying to resurrect

[xenopeek]

We don't know yet but I assume some time after this release is out of beta you'll see it appear as a security update in Update manager.

[Hoser Rob]

Installing a beta Flash version sounds like a good way to make your computer less secure to me.

[Fred Barclay]

Thank you xenopeek. I'm going to sit this one out (I'm avoiding Flash as much as possible) but I appreciate you detailing how to install.

[Pjotr]

Good news! Thanks for the information and for the how-to.

[ostracized]

Thanks @xenopeek, this is exactly what I was looking for and seeing this thread on the front page was a nice surprise. Fun fact: you can tar this .so file and the size goes from 18.2MB to 6.7MB, lol.

Installing a beta Flash version sounds like a good way to make your computer less secure to me.

Hey at least it's not an alpha.

Because this change is primarily a security initiative, some features (like GPU 3D acceleration and premium video DRM) will not be fully implemented.

Didn't really care about the DRM aspect as Chrome can be used for that, it's just the fact that playing the CBSN flash-only livestream takes about 75% cpu. Maybe using Chrome for PPAPI flash is the way to go from now on...

[Portreve]

I am so glad that YouTube has gotten away from Flash, and I will not hesitate to make other sites aware of it when they make access to their materials dependent upon it.

Generally, though, I just use Chromium and don't really care too much about it.

[Lucap]

Didn't really care about the DRM aspect as Chrome can be used for that.

You can't in Britain.

[ostracized]

mkdir ~/.mozilla/firefox/*.default/plugins

I'm not sure that wildcard is allowed. For me that resulted in, No such file or directory so being curious, I did mkdir -p ~/.mozilla/firefox/*.default/plugins and that put a folder literally called *.default (with included "plugins") in the firefox folder.

[xenopeek]

My mistake. Replaced the command with find ~/.mozilla/firefox/*.default -prune -exec mkdir {}/plugins \; for those that want to use the terminal.

[ostracized]

Didn't really care about the DRM aspect as Chrome can be used for that.

You can't in Britain.

Well the good news is if you still want to hold onto firefox, widevine DRM will be included in FF49 -- that should give you access to netflix and amazon. That will be shipped out in a week or so and probably lands on Ubuntu/Mint in a month+ or so. I'm looking at Mozilla's schedule...we're getting pretty close until NPAPI support is dropped completely...in the release version by April of next year and the ESR will hold onto support for some time longer. I don't see any plans to switching over to PPAPI flash by then. Here's some reading material for your leisure time:
http://www.ghacks.net/2016/08/13/firefo ... zon-video/
http://www.ghacks.net/2016/04/11/firefo ... -of-npapi/

[Lucap]

Chrome pepper flash doesn't work in Britain with TV catchup sites.

[BG405]

Thanks for this xenopeek. I too avoid Flash where possible (it's blocked by default in my browser; I only use Firefox by the way. But this might be needed at some time so am adding this thread to my bookmarks

[SuperSapien]

Because this change is primarily a security initiative, some features (like GPU 3D acceleration and premium video DRM) will not be fully implemented.

BAH!

British catch up television such as 4OD still doesn't work because of the lack of DRM but at least it should stop some sites nagging about an out of date version.

So wait it wont include DRM for watching something like Netflix?

[xenopeek]

EME (Encrypted Media Extensions) support is arriving in Firefox 49 on Linux last I heard. That will make it possible to use Google Chrome's Widevine CDM to watch Netflix on Firefox. Flash Player isn't relevant for watching Netflix. See also: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Media/EME#Platform_Support