As of today, can't force Flash anymore on YouTube

[lovemyfoxy]

It's not running a URL from YT. Error message "can't run."

[mightyglydd]

Start VLC Player.
Get to > Open Media (It's right click at the top for me, but I use a Theme which sometimes changes the VLC UI) > Open Network > Enter (copy/paste ) URL > Hit Play.
@Foxy, to be clear, we're talking about playing the video WITH VLC, not IN Firefox with that VLC plugin (now ESR only?) which AFAIR hasn't worked properly in years.

[lovemyfoxy]

I know about the plugin, hoping it had come back. I didn't know about "Network Stream;" I was using "Open Location from Clipboard," which doesn't work.

This is cool! Will it work with sites other than YT?

[Reflective]

There's a possible workaround the developer mentioned in the comments for the following extension: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo ... flash-play

Here's a transcript of it:

EDIT July 27, 2017: YouTube™ has made changes and it looks like it's no more possible to watch videos using Flash® Player. Not really surprising since Adobe has announced the end of Flash® (https://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/2 ... pdate.html). So please stop sending me emails, there's nothing I can do, add-on is working as expected, it's just YouTube™ that forces the use of the HTML5 player. Open the console (Ctrl + Shift + K), type "yt.msgs_.YTP_HTML5_FLASH_DEPRECATED" (without quotes) and press Enter.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Frank Lion]

There's a possible workaround ...

And what exactly happened to a YT video when you tried this possible workaround, that you are posting here in red?

[Reflective]

Something else I've just ascertained is that the following extension doesn't work anymore: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo ... src=search
Right clicking a video reveals the codec in use to be "vp9" as can be seen in the following screenshot:even though I have that extension installed: https://i.imgur.com/0BWbUT2.png

[Reflective]

There's a possible workaround ...

And what exactly happened to a YT video when you tried this possible workaround, that you are posting here in red?

I didn't try it since I'm not experiencing any problems with HTML5 playback. However, others may want to have a go.

[LIMPET235]

A, FWIW...
I tried this extension & it appears to function O.K.
BUT, version 1.5 developed a little problem, in that, in checking it's Options in the Addons Manager, it froze Firefox completely.
I had to close it via the Task Manager.
(NB: This is with Firefox v20 though.)

I eventually found that v1.4.2 works fine.

The latest v2 should be good to go with anything later than Firefox v24.
Youtube 2 Player > https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo ... src=search

I can still D/L the videos, if all else fails.

[Frank Lion]

One surprising thing I have noticed since this YT Flash change is that the HTML5 performance of YT seems to have improved dramatically.

Previously, on PCs, I found YT HTML5 performance patchy, sometimes OK but often not. When not, I used a YT Flash player extension or viewed the vid as MP4 in the external SMPlayer. The latter two options seem to be, so far, no longer needed. So, if you've had trouble with YT's HTML5 performance in the past, then try it again and see if it's improved for you.

I couldn't readily find any YT videos of cats falling amusingly into baths or Russians crashing their cars in the snow vids to demonstrate this HTML5 performance improvement. So, instead, here's one of the many usual Mk1 Martini Henry Ammunition vids - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7DDGgE0wU8

[LIMPET235]

Feedback on video quality etc., etc...
I haven't noticed any great difference between Flash in Firefox v20 & HTML5 in Firefox v50.
Both seem to be equal.

The only difference that I note, is that Flash just loves to crash & h$#% of a lot, which is damn annoying, to say the least.
Now, I haven't used v50 for "general YT viewing" for a while, so cannot say if Firefox will perform any better or not.
Lets hope so.

[lovemyfoxy]

Frank Lion--

Thanks for the very informative vid on the 1860's ammunition. I've learned a number of things from this thread.

A recent poll of this forum's posts shows 6,485,433,277 complaints about Flash and 2 complaints about the inability to run 5,000 tabs at once. The plugin that gave us massive FF problems for 20 years is disappearing, and users are looking for workarounds to keep it going. I'm a practical person. I say let it go. YT is not the movie theater where I paid $12 to see a film. And we already have workarounds for that.

[MarkRH]

I wish places like FOX and NBC Sports sites would change to HTML5. The current versions of Firefox and Flash are rather crashy. https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/report/ ... 2791170730 happened a few minutes ago. Anyway.. I guess that's off topic for this thread.

Way back the colors of HTML5 videos on YouTube were worse then Flash. Now, they are as good or better than Flash and the HTML5 stuff never crashes. Now, If I was on Windows XP I might be singing a different tune.

[lovemyfoxy]

If we hung on for 20 years, we can hang on another 3. NYTimes changed a awhile back. Maybe you can switch news sites.

[James]

Streamlink may be a option for stream sites like Youtube, Twitch and many others.

https://streamlink.github.io/

Examples of how to use it with Youtube.
https://www.ostechnix.com/streamlink-wa ... mand-line/

For Twitch there is a GUI that makes it easier over using CLI.