Life without Flash: share your tips and tricks.

[PowerPCMacMan]

Ok, what sites would I have trouble with viewing flash video? Youtube is about 95 percent where I am at when watching videos and movies, as well as flash games + shockwave games, but exactly which sites would give me a problem?

Originally Posted by B-G

If you use TextEdit to open the Flash Player executables (they should be in the MacOS folder inside the FP bundle) and you use the search and replace feature, you will see that there are several references to the plugin release. Do not alter them! I tried and Flash would not work anymore. I assume that the Adobe website reads the player version from those references, so you will not be able to fool it by changing the strings in the .plist and .rsrc files. Luckily this doesn't seem to be true for sites like Youtube, that will see your hacked FP as version 11.6
So you should still be able to use flash on most sites (but please, please be careful ).

[B-G]

Well, considering that, at best, my use of the hacked Flash plugin can be defined as sporadic, I really can't answer that question. Sorry.

[GermanyChris]

Originally Posted by Javelin Dan

Well, as the only “non-Mac” Mac guy around these parts (I use Ubuntu on my Ppc Macs); I’ll weigh in with what I do. These are admittedly low tech solutions that match my skill level, but they work for me. There are two pieces of software in the repository called “gnash” and “gnash common”. They both come installed by default in the full blown Ubuntu 12.04 Ppc. Version, but if I’m not mistaken, you have to install them in Lubuntu 12.04 Ppc. (lightweight version). This is an open source flash player that will play most, but not all videos. On my wife’s G4 emac with a 1Ghz processor, the videos that do play are somewhat choppy and halting, but overall watchable. On my older G4 Graphics “Sawtooth” with a 450 Mhz. processor, they load up extremely slowly and play like a very ponderous slide show. I’ve always wondered how well they might play on a G5 or something with an upgraded processor.

Anyway, not having the patience for all that, I go a different route. I use Firefox as my browser and as most of you know, it has a ton of add-ons available. My favorite downloading tool is “Video Download Helper”. It will absolutely work on all Youtube videos as well as many others, although not all. Download time is about the same as running the video for the first time, but when done, you have a nice little MV4 file put safely away in a special file (automatically created). No hurky-jerkiness, no buffering, just a nice little video of very high quality resolution (depending on the quality of the recording, of course) that you can replay over and over. Though I've never taken the time to figure out how to do it, there is also supposed to be an option to stream a video via "VLC".

Would I prefer to be able to play videos directly through Flash? Sure. I’ve thought more than once about reloading 10.3 Panther on my wife’s emac and running one of the “retro-fit” browsers with Flash. But since she uses this for on-line banking, etc., I just don’t feel good about exposing it to all the inherent security risks. And I still have a stinging memory of that little beach ball spinning endlessly as my Mac got slower and slower telling me it was time for a complete re-installation of the OS. This has NEVER happened with Ubuntu.

I know I’m way outnumbered here, and far be it from me to try to persuade someone away from their pursuit of interest, but if in fact the window is closing on options for the powerpc Macs running "OS 10-whatever" that hasn’t been updated in how many years?, Ubuntu DOES offer an alternative with a modern OS that is updated regularly for security and bug fixes. And do I need to remind you that this is all free? Free as in Braveheart and free as in beer. I’m just sayin’…

This is a big reason I like Firefox

[PowerPCMacMan]

Flash is working great!!! While it is identified as 11.6.602.167 under plugins, it still works as it should.. But really on my PB G4 1.67 I use quicktime, and on my G5 Quad I use flash.

Originally Posted by B-G

Well, considering that, at best, my use of the hacked Flash plugin can be defined as sporadic, I really can't answer that question. Sorry.

[B-G]

Flash 11.7.700.203 is out. I updated the info.plist file in the first post.

[rabidz7]

Use mactubes!