Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Flash on Facebook

I'm told in comments there is a crisis of epic proportions on Facebook that has naturally spawned a new Facebook page! Okay, putting aside Facebook users' tendency to match the outrage of the day with a corresponding Facebook page, it seems this time there is justification for PPC users as Facebook will no longer play flash videos unless you have the current Flash 11.1 installed (and Adobe's PPC support ended with 10.1). There's an ingenious fix detailed in this Youtube video, however, where the creator has made a modified Flash plugin to report itself as 11.1 even though it's still 10.1. Lo and behold, Facebook videos now work.

The direct download link is here (with a ReadMe included): http://www.steelbin.com/FPforFBPPC.zip

I've read several reports in forums saying it works, though I can't verify it myself since I don't do Facebook. Also this probably has security holes you can drive a tank through, but luckily there don't appear to be enough PPC Mac users to attract the hackers of the world.

That Facebook page for PPC Macs above might be worth keeping an eye on, too, as there may be more issues popping up in the future.
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13 comments:

  1. AnonymousDecember 7, 2011 at 10:49 AM

    that's great news...

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousDecember 7, 2011 at 11:49 AM

    Hi there, I intall in my sister's computer "PowerBook G4/Leopard" and it did work very well. Now let's hope for the best.
    Thank you for the post.
    http://macpowerpc.wordpress.com

    ReplyDelete
  3. JeanneDecember 7, 2011 at 4:12 PM

    Yes, it works...this is because the only thing currently preventing PPC's from playing flash vid on FB is a check version script that looks for the latest version on your machine before giving the go ahead to play it...but whatever programmer did the script, didn't make an exception in the scripting for non-intel macs.

    So, for now, it will work....but when they release a new version, you may need to use a program such as TextWrangler to go into the the Flash Player Plugin(control click-show package contents) in your internet plug ins in Library and edit the info.plist and version.plist text files to reflect the newest version number.

    This will work ONLY until there is a real change in Flash or a new codec where 10.1 just won't work any longer....

    ReplyDelete
  4. Phos FourDotsDecember 12, 2011 at 8:51 AM

    Totally works as advertised, in both Safari Version 4.1.3 (4533.19.4) and Firefox/3.6.24 GTB7.1. After downloading it took less than a minute to switch out the old version for the new version. No computer restart needed.

    Here's what I'm wondering, though—don't have time to investigate and experiment:
    I wonder if it would be possible to create an Automator/AppleScript run-only application that could dig into the contents of the OEM "FlashPlayer.plugin" file, open the package contents and simply change the version info string. Sure would be quicker than D/Ling the whole plugin.

    ReplyDelete
  5. PapafroshDecember 12, 2011 at 9:09 AM

    Thank you very much.

    ReplyDelete
  6. dr.daveDecember 19, 2011 at 7:51 PM

    I've noticed some sites that like older flash versions (most notably daily motion-which still works with flash 9) don't much care for the facebook hacked flash plugin. They put you into a spinning flash wheel of death trying to load. Replacing with the non hacked flash plugin fixed that issue.

    ReplyDelete
  7. AnonymousMarch 18, 2012 at 4:51 AM

    Grazie!!!

    ReplyDelete
  8. superriku11April 25, 2012 at 10:15 PM

    Many thanks for this! I can't honestly understand why FB wants to require the latest version of Flash when nothing in their code actually requires it. =/

    But this plugin hack has made my day! I didn't need it for FB, but for something else that supposedly "required" Flash 11. Turns out it really didn't. =]

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AnonymousJuly 16, 2012 at 11:22 PM

      Firefox disabled the Flash plugin "for my protection"! Is there some way to turn that noise off?

      Delete
  9. kahlil.moonwalkerJuly 17, 2012 at 10:29 AM

    I'm having problems with Firefox blocking it as well. Is there a workaround?

    ReplyDelete
  10. DanJuly 17, 2012 at 11:32 AM

    For TenFourFox, try typing "about:config" in the address bar and change "tenfourfox.plugins.enabled" from false to true by double clicking on it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. kahlil.moonwalkerJuly 26, 2012 at 11:22 AM

      I'm using the old vanilla Firefox 3.6.28 since I was under the impression TenFourFox didn't support plugins at all. I'll have to give this a shot.

      Delete
  11. Tbilisi HotelsJuly 29, 2012 at 3:50 AM

    Sure you like scary maze game ?

    ReplyDelete