I recently decided to uninstall Flash on my eMac, to enhance security and to understand how this changes the browsing experience. I hope we can help each other find good strategies to use on a flash free powerpc mac, so I created this thread.
Without further ado...
The [un]safety net
What if you still need to access a website requiring Flash and not offering any html5 replacement? On intel an easy solution to this problem is installing Chrome, which comes with its own version of the Flash player. A bit of googleing reveals that you can do something similar on powerpc thanks to Camino and Omniweb. Before uninstalling the flash plugin copy it from /Library/Internet Plug-Ins to:
/Users/_YOURUSERNAME_/Library/Application Support/Camino/Internet Plug-Ins (for Camino)
/Users/_YOURUSERNAME_/Applications/OmniWeb.app/Contents/PlugIns (for Omniweb)
You will now be able to use Flash on these browsers even after you uninstall it from your system. So Camino and Omniweb can act as your emergency browsers. The _BIG_ problem is that when using them you will still be exposed to all the vulnerabilities of Flash, so use this method only as a last resort and only if you have not access to a more modern computer with an up to date version of the Flash player.
[Edit 9/6/2013]
Camino is dead. Omniweb has not been updated for a while, and its next release will not probably support PPC. Using an outdated and insecure plugin in an outdated browser would be foolish.
If you are on Leopard there is still a couple of ways to use this trick with modern browsers.
Again, do it only if you have no choice.
Seamonkey PPC
Copy the flash plugin in:
~/Applications/SeaMonkey.app/Contents/MacOS/plugins
(create the plugins folder if necessary)
Most Webkit based browsers
This only makes sense if you install the stable release of Leopard-Webkit (at the moment it is the 536 series), or if you use the "DYLD_FRAMEWORK_PATH=" command to launch your browser with the updated Leopard-Webkit frameworks (I can post more about this, if you want). In any other case your browser would use the outdated frameworks that comes with Safari 5.0.6.
Copy the flash plugin in:
~/Applications/_YOURAPPNAME_/Contents/plugins
(create the plugins folder if necessary)
This seems to work for most Webkit based browsers, but not for Stainless. I would recommend iCab, considering it still supports Leopard.
Problem: YouTube html5 player *****
If YouTube detects that your browser can play webm files it will serve you webm instead of h264. This is a problem if you are using Webkit based browsers and you have Perian installed *, or if your browser is TenFourFox/FireFox. Webm playback is horrible on most powerpc macs. The other problem is the dreaded autoplay. On TFF use NoScript to block YouTube html5 player, then use QuickTime enabler or one of the many FireFox add-ons to access content. For Webkit based browsers disable Perian from system preferences (or simply use MacTubes, of course). The really big exception is Safari 5, thank to its extensions. Youtube5 will replace the YT player with a much nicer html5 player. Another solution is using ClickToPlugin plus an auxiliary extension from Marc Hoyois:
https://github.com/downloads/hoyois/safariextensions/DisableYouTubeHTML5-1.1.safariextz
This will solve the webm and the autoplay issues at the same time.
* Please notice that Leopard Webkit (as the new Safari 6 does) actually masks its ability to play webm videos, so you will get h264 instead. Cool!
Using ClickToPlugin at its fullest after having uninstalled Flash
This is my favourite trick. I just love the ClickToPlugin extension, it is the reason why I've kept Safari as my default browser even when Apple completely ruined its browser on the first few releases of Lion.
If you uninstall flash in most occasions CTP will have nothing to replace. This should not be a problem, after all websites will serve html5 videos on their own, right? Wrong! On many sites wou will have to change your user agent to iPad and/or disable plugins in Safari preferences to access html5 media. This is not difficult, but the way CTP works is much more natural. Also, sometimes a website html5 player may not be as functional as Safari native player (for example no full screen option).
If you want to use all CTP features on a flash free computer, install the old ClickToFlash plugin and ClickToPlugin at the same time. Please notice that I'm referring to Jonathan Rentzsch's ClickToFlash plugin not to the Marc Hoyois' Safari extension:
http://clicktoflash.com/
It is completely counterintuitive to install two flash blocking programs on a flash free system, but it will work surprisingly well. ClicktoFlash advertises itself as the Flash player, so websites will serve flash content that will be blocked and replaced by ClickToPlugin. You will have access to more html5 videos in this way (and more easily) than by confiding in webmasters' good will.
The only problem is that you won't have access to non-media html5 replacement content. If you are on a page where this could be a problem simply disable plugins in Safari preferences, then reload the page.
Please notice that this method will not work with Safari 5.1 or newer, that is on most intel macs. Ain't it good to enjoy some powerpc specific goodness for once?
[edit] It is necessary to modify a few strings in the Info.plist file inside ClickToFlash, so that it will advertise itself as the most recent release of the Flash player. I'm going to attach a modified version of this file to this post. Copy it into /Users/_YOURUSERNAME_/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/ClickToFlash.webplugin/Contents
For future reference I'm going to add the (very simple) procedure to modify the file.
Open the Info.plist file (if you installed the developers tools it will be opened by Property List Editor, if not you can still use TextEdit). The strings you'll have to modify are "CTFFlashVariableVersion" and "WebPluginDescription". At the moment the latest release of Flash Player is 11.5.502.110, so the strings should look like this:
CTFFlashVariableVersion --> MAC 11,5,502,110
WebPluginDescription --> Shockwave Flash 11.5 r502
[edit 16/1/2014: info.plist file updated to simulate the new Flash 12.0.0.38]
Let me know if this is useful to you, and please share your own tips and tricks.
Without further ado...
The [un]safety net
What if you still need to access a website requiring Flash and not offering any html5 replacement? On intel an easy solution to this problem is installing Chrome, which comes with its own version of the Flash player. A bit of googleing reveals that you can do something similar on powerpc thanks to Camino and Omniweb. Before uninstalling the flash plugin copy it from /Library/Internet Plug-Ins to:
/Users/_YOURUSERNAME_/Library/Application Support/Camino/Internet Plug-Ins (for Camino)
/Users/_YOURUSERNAME_/Applications/OmniWeb.app/Contents/PlugIns (for Omniweb)
You will now be able to use Flash on these browsers even after you uninstall it from your system. So Camino and Omniweb can act as your emergency browsers. The _BIG_ problem is that when using them you will still be exposed to all the vulnerabilities of Flash, so use this method only as a last resort and only if you have not access to a more modern computer with an up to date version of the Flash player.
[Edit 9/6/2013]
Camino is dead. Omniweb has not been updated for a while, and its next release will not probably support PPC. Using an outdated and insecure plugin in an outdated browser would be foolish.
If you are on Leopard there is still a couple of ways to use this trick with modern browsers.
Again, do it only if you have no choice.
Seamonkey PPC
Copy the flash plugin in:
~/Applications/SeaMonkey.app/Contents/MacOS/plugins
(create the plugins folder if necessary)
Most Webkit based browsers
This only makes sense if you install the stable release of Leopard-Webkit (at the moment it is the 536 series), or if you use the "DYLD_FRAMEWORK_PATH=" command to launch your browser with the updated Leopard-Webkit frameworks (I can post more about this, if you want). In any other case your browser would use the outdated frameworks that comes with Safari 5.0.6.
Copy the flash plugin in:
~/Applications/_YOURAPPNAME_/Contents/plugins
(create the plugins folder if necessary)
This seems to work for most Webkit based browsers, but not for Stainless. I would recommend iCab, considering it still supports Leopard.
Problem: YouTube html5 player *****
If YouTube detects that your browser can play webm files it will serve you webm instead of h264. This is a problem if you are using Webkit based browsers and you have Perian installed *, or if your browser is TenFourFox/FireFox. Webm playback is horrible on most powerpc macs. The other problem is the dreaded autoplay. On TFF use NoScript to block YouTube html5 player, then use QuickTime enabler or one of the many FireFox add-ons to access content. For Webkit based browsers disable Perian from system preferences (or simply use MacTubes, of course). The really big exception is Safari 5, thank to its extensions. Youtube5 will replace the YT player with a much nicer html5 player. Another solution is using ClickToPlugin plus an auxiliary extension from Marc Hoyois:
https://github.com/downloads/hoyois/safariextensions/DisableYouTubeHTML5-1.1.safariextz
This will solve the webm and the autoplay issues at the same time.
* Please notice that Leopard Webkit (as the new Safari 6 does) actually masks its ability to play webm videos, so you will get h264 instead. Cool!
Using ClickToPlugin at its fullest after having uninstalled Flash
This is my favourite trick. I just love the ClickToPlugin extension, it is the reason why I've kept Safari as my default browser even when Apple completely ruined its browser on the first few releases of Lion.
If you uninstall flash in most occasions CTP will have nothing to replace. This should not be a problem, after all websites will serve html5 videos on their own, right? Wrong! On many sites wou will have to change your user agent to iPad and/or disable plugins in Safari preferences to access html5 media. This is not difficult, but the way CTP works is much more natural. Also, sometimes a website html5 player may not be as functional as Safari native player (for example no full screen option).
If you want to use all CTP features on a flash free computer, install the old ClickToFlash plugin and ClickToPlugin at the same time. Please notice that I'm referring to Jonathan Rentzsch's ClickToFlash plugin not to the Marc Hoyois' Safari extension:
http://clicktoflash.com/
It is completely counterintuitive to install two flash blocking programs on a flash free system, but it will work surprisingly well. ClicktoFlash advertises itself as the Flash player, so websites will serve flash content that will be blocked and replaced by ClickToPlugin. You will have access to more html5 videos in this way (and more easily) than by confiding in webmasters' good will.
The only problem is that you won't have access to non-media html5 replacement content. If you are on a page where this could be a problem simply disable plugins in Safari preferences, then reload the page.
Please notice that this method will not work with Safari 5.1 or newer, that is on most intel macs. Ain't it good to enjoy some powerpc specific goodness for once?
[edit] It is necessary to modify a few strings in the Info.plist file inside ClickToFlash, so that it will advertise itself as the most recent release of the Flash player. I'm going to attach a modified version of this file to this post. Copy it into /Users/_YOURUSERNAME_/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/ClickToFlash.webplugin/Contents
For future reference I'm going to add the (very simple) procedure to modify the file.
Open the Info.plist file (if you installed the developers tools it will be opened by Property List Editor, if not you can still use TextEdit). The strings you'll have to modify are "CTFFlashVariableVersion" and "WebPluginDescription". At the moment the latest release of Flash Player is 11.5.502.110, so the strings should look like this:
CTFFlashVariableVersion --> MAC 11,5,502,110
WebPluginDescription --> Shockwave Flash 11.5 r502
[edit 16/1/2014: info.plist file updated to simulate the new Flash 12.0.0.38]
Let me know if this is useful to you, and please share your own tips and tricks.
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