Flash on Firefox 2.0 beta hangs my machine

That Firefox and Flash issue is only on Vista. I noticed this as well. I had to use the flash exe installer to get it working. Also, I like WMV on Windows, and would not want quicktime…so at podtech you better offer WMV still!

Robert, why that screenshoot looks like a bad resolution capture? Isn’t print-screen good enough?

BTW: I can’t wait till browsers start supporting seriously: SVG

mini-d: that was probably my fault. I print screened, copied into Paint, then saved as GIF.

Brandon, I’ll check out my XP box right now.

I’ve been trying Opera 9 – it supports SVG and you can download it for free:

http://dotnetjunkies.com/WebLog/paul/archive/2006/07/09/141786.aspx

Robert: “beta” is a key word in your post too. Any beta product, be it from open source, microsoft, whoever, I tend to give the benefit of the doubt to. Doubly so when using a new product (flash 9) on a beta (firefox) running on another beta (vista).

It’s just as bad on my XP box that has never had Firefox on it. It said “failed” after I got through the Flash download and install and Amanda’s site still said “plugin required.”

The only way around this is a manual install.

By the way, doing both required many, many clicks. I’m gonna do it again and count.

Same behavior happens on the shipping version of Firefox, by the way.

I get the same issue using Firefox 1.5.0.4 on Vista.

Phil

Ha, Robert, your talking about how bad a BETA of Firefox is…yet you constantly talk about how Windows Vista BETA 2 is so wonderful, and are quick to point out that it still is a BETA if something goes wrong.

You’re so fucking biased, it’s unbelivable.

Cody: these comments aren’t aimed at Firefox, if you do some careful reading.

And, I’ll have plenty to say about Vista. It’s slow. It has poor driver support. The UI isn’t finished. And application support isn’t very good.

So, Robert, why don’t you just get a Mac? Everything works on a Mac.

“we got rid of the stupid EULA”?

When have you ever used commercial software that didn’t have an EULA? Come on man, you’re starting to sound silly now.

Whoa!!! Using bleeding edge builds and getting some erorrs? What a suprise. I’m assuming we’ll be seeing a post on how a lot of sites return error messages when I use IE 7 beta? The sites don’t even render, only give me an error message stating that I need to download the new version of IE. Lately I have been steering clear of a lot of beta and nightly builds and lo and behold I have a less hedaches.
Take a step back and you’ll see the banality of the post.

Don’t worry. The headaces of flash are well and good over on the Linux side of things, too. We have an outdated version that can’t be shipped with most distros because of the license. And did I mention the installer wants to be used from the command line? We’ve only had the Loki graphical installers for what, 8 years now?

Cali: Not in this case. Robert’s talking about Flash 9, for which Adobe did not initially ship a universal binary. I called them out on it here: http://www.richbrownell.com/page.php?id=236 and they quickly got back to me so I updated: http://www.richbrownell.com/page.php?id=237

And to Robert again: if there is a problem with Flash, I’m sure it’ll have a fix soon. Adobe released new Flash, Flex, and ColdFusion all on the same day, so they have a lot to deal with.

If the flash plugin is given away free to everyone, why don’t Adobe open source it? Then it could be included inside Firefox like any other regular tag.

Am I missing something basic here?

I’d like to see 2 versions of the firefox install, one for techies which is just firefox, and one for the rest of the world (me included) that installs every fucking extension I need, Flash, Shockwave, Quicktime and all the media playing stuff, everything baby.

I still haven’t been able to get Quicktime to work on my PC, and I’ve been using browsers since Mosaic. Does this make Apple suck?

BTW I love Firefox, it made MS up their game. Win win for everyone

monk.e.boy

The difference between Vista, IE 7 and Firefox is that Firefox is “release candidate 1″ – as in ready for release.

Many times when viewing Flash on Firefox 1.5 running on Windows XP, it starts using 100% of my processor and so I have to give it an end task. My guess is that you’re experiencing the same problem because of the same bug they haven’t fixed since 1.5 (or maybe even earlier).

The answer to your screenshot nightmares is a great utility built in C# called cropper created by BRIAN Scott. It has been an essential for me for 2 years. Scott Hanselman had it listed as one of his developer tools.
http://www.hanselman.com/blog/MyGrokTalkTenToolsInTenMinutes.aspx

http://blogs.geekdojo.net/brian/articles/Cropper.aspx

Get the tools, you will love them.

I always use EULAlyzer from javacool to help me with EULA’s. Just point it at the EULA box in the software you are installing and it will help analyse the EULA by pointing out the sections of interest (for instance third party tools or licences, or “without notice”,…) and assigning a level of interest to them.
Free download from http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/eulalyzer.html
It saves a lot of time when reading EULA’s, since it makes one focus on the sections that are of importance. I hope you can find it useful as well.

Comment on the screen shot, there’s a screen clipping tool in Vista that will allow you to save a screen shot as jpeg. Unless I’m mistaken, it should be under accessories.

“the EULA is pages long with language that normal people can’t understand (does anyone really read those things anyway?). If I was a normal person instead of a tech geek I’d say “screw this” and hit the back button.”

That’s not true and you know it. The “normal person” will not read it, but *will* click ok to continue. If that wasn’t the case, noone would upgrade Windows either… and remember how long the EULA you have to accept in Windows Update for that wmf or jpg bug fix is, btw? It’s not to shabby either…

Thank you for considering not using wmv for video….

More on “codec silos” … we are thinking about short term user issues (installation) but we should also keep in mind the longer term issues if any one vendor makes it so easy that they force a lock-in on their proprietary format.

I think that our only hope is for Apple and RealNetworks to create a completely interoperable IPTV stack based upon the MPEG LA standard of H264 in MP4 or 3GP over RTSP or HTTP. We need two strong vendors to drive this effort together. When this happens Microsoft will eventually be forced to add this standard IPTV support to their media player and then we will have a good solution that will work out of the box for most consumers regardless of OS and browser or device.

If Microsoft just simply added support for ISMA standard MPEG4 codecs and formats these problems would go away for consumers. It is amazing that they have to push Windows Media format at the exclusion of the standard rather than letting it compete on its technical merits. Adopting standards would really improve the consumer experience with MS products. They are holding back the general IPTV industry with these practices.

I have a longer post on “codec silos” here: http://podslug.com/blog/?p=32

“The difference between Vista, IE 7 and Firefox is that Firefox is “release candidate 1″ – as in ready for release.”

That’s bullshit, Jarred. Firefox 2 isn’t even beta yet. It will be in a week or two.

“And, I’ll have plenty to say about Vista. It’s slow. It has poor driver support. The UI isn’t finished. And application support isn’t very good.”

You saw it here first:

Robert Scoble gives his first “I wouldn’t have said it this harshly when I was a Microsoft employee” piece of post-Microsoft perspective-tude.

Micosoft defenders, please start your engines.

Robert, you are so0o0o0 in a new world.

“Hey, what’s different? He used to regularly criticise Microsoft on some stuff but say PR-friendly things about other Microsoft stuff”.

Yeah, but this latest stuff seems kind of, er, less subtle, less guarded, no?