Dragon 33 - Flash Player issues workaround!

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61

I need not hold my breath, since Chrome 35 for Linux, which I’m using, does not support NPAPI (that support was never implemented in Linux-Aura). :wink:

All extensions and apps using NPAPI will be unpublished in September, and I expect the NPAPI-implementation to be removed from the Chromium-code shortly after that.

I fully understand your frustration. The workaround posted in this topic is an inconvenience for users, and a real solution must be released soon. I am not sure exactly what that solution will be. However, it is obvious that the long term solution must use PPAPI. If Google refuses to distribute their PepperFlash separately, users must still install Google Chrome to get PepperFlash on their systems. At least the inconvenience for the user can be reduced to just that, installing Google Chrome. I have not tried it on Windows, but on Ubuntu, if you install Maxthon and have Google Chrome installed, Maxthon will automatically use Chrome’s PepperFlash.

This is of course not an issue for Dragon alone, but for all Chromium-based browsers (except Chrome). That includes Opera, which has quite many users, and probably Opera Software ASA makes its voice heard regarding this issue.

62

Hi CS,
Your right, but it’s not the site. TED.com loads ok.

The flash player crashes when clicking the play button to view the discussions. (Good brain fodder. I enjoy the mental stimulation).

HTTPS Everywhere has TED listed as a buggy site in it’s Experimental rules & unticked. I had assumed, (incorrectly), the unticked Experimental box meant it excluded TED (because it was buggy & listed) & it needed to be ticked to include it…wrong! chicken & egg! My cock eyed thinking!

Tick the box under Experimental, & Flash loads & plays TED videos OK. No need to disable (untick) HTTPS Everywhere in Dragon Extensions.

Question ?

Will anyone announce (maybe CD V34) what the problem(s) is or are & when or what will fix it all, so I (all of us) don’t have to keep patching & testing or wondering,… is it fixed yet ?

uTube videos play ok with the latest Flash V13, so maybe it’s just HTTPS Everywhere. I don’t want to turn it off or have to be constantly switching it on & off. I want Net neutrality, freedom & privacy (EFF & EFA). It’s a losing battle sigh

When I have more time, I’ll maybe revert the patches & test Flash & TED again.

63

This NPAPI issue could potentially mean the death of Dragon usage for many people unless a way is found to use PepperFlash. I know it would kill it for me.

64

Opera 23 has a flag called Find Pepper Flash plug-in (opera://flags/#find-pepper-flash-plugin): “Automatically find and use Pepper Flash plug-in, if it is installed in the system.”

I did not get it working on W7 with Chrome 34 installed, though.

65

Hi JoWa,

Opera have apparently made an entry in their ://flags for PepperFlash. I couldn’t check. I don’t use or have Opera on my system.
Dragon://flags …(which is redirected to Chrome://Flags with a danger warning…use with care!) has no entry for it, which is why (my guess) the find failed, assuming you used Dragon (Chrome) for your find!

PepperFlash is a folder name & is one of several PepperFlash folders including one folder which is empty! & the PPAPI file is called pepflashplayer.dll Devious & obfuscated !

Win7 Search can’t find it, if I search for pepperflash unless I do a Computer search. It then finds multiple folders for pepperflash, including the empty folder. I’d remove all the extraneous folders, but not sure what Chrome might be doing with them or why they are still on the HDD ?

I’ll stick with the Dragon shortcut patch to the PPAPI for now, since ticking the experimental box for TED in HTTPS Everywhere, now works ok for all sites & video & audio files I checked…

BTW I tested Adobe Flash V13.0.0.214 with Dragon V33 & it fails to load the player in TED but works ok on all other video & audio files I tried. Hoping Dragon V34 will fix it. I’d like to know why TED fails to load videos with NPAPI ? Be good when NPAPI is dumped in the bin of ancient history.

66

Hi huntsman,

I used Opera 23.0.1499.0 Developer on a virtual W7 64-bit. The flag is disabled by default and I am not sure the feature is supposed to be functional in this first Developer-build of Opera 23.

Anyhow, if using PepperFlash from a Chrome-installation is the path Opera has chosen, it is probably the path Comodo must also choose, and implement a similar solution.

67

Isn’t adobe able to make an official PPAPI version of their Flash?

68

Able to, most certainly. Interested in doing that, most certainly not. It would be a separate build (one for each supported OS) of Flash Player for Opera and other Chromium-derivatives with very few users, and a build that would be a duplicate of Google’s PepperFlash.

I think the best solution would be to license Google’s PepperFlash for distribution with the browser (Dragon, Opera etc) and with operating systems (I think vendors of Linux-distributions would gladly distribute PepperFlash). But why would Google be interested in that?

69

thank you for the information. lee

70

OK. I managed to get the shortcut set up and such however I have 3 questions ~

  1. When should we expect a fix/update for this?
  2. I have the pepperflash .dll on my desktop - do I move the manifest.json to the desktop as well or is that not necessary?
  3. Where, exactly, do we add the path in the .json file - here’s what mine says:

{
“description”: “Pepper Flash Player”,
“name”: “Flapper”,
“version”: “12.0.0.70”,
“x-flapper-revision”: “1246151”,
“x-ppapi-arch”: “ia32”,
“x-ppapi-os”: “win”,
“x-ppapi-required-interfaces”: [
“PPB_AudioConfig;1.1|PPB_AudioConfig;1.0”,
“PPB_AudioInput(Dev);0.3|PPB_AudioInput(Dev);0.2”,
“PPB_Audio;1.0”,
“PPB_BrowserFont_Trusted;1.0”,
“PPB_Buffer(Dev);0.4”,
“PPB_CharSet(Dev);0.4”,
“PPB_Core;1.0”,
“PPB_Crypto(Dev);0.1”,
“PPB_CursorControl(Dev);0.4”,
“PPB_FileChooser(Dev);0.6|PPB_FileChooser(Dev);0.5”,
“PPB_FileChooserTrusted;0.6|PPB_FileChooserTrusted;0.5”,
“PPB_FileRef;1.0”,
“PPB_Flash_Clipboard;5.0|PPB_Flash_Clipboard;4.0”,
“PPB_Flash_File_FileRef;2”,
“PPB_Flash_File_ModuleLocal;3”,
“PPB_Flash_FontFile;0.1|PPB_PDF;1”,
“PPB_FlashFullscreen;1.0|PPB_FlashFullscreen;0.1”,
“PPB_Flash;13.0|PPB_Flash;12.6|PPB_Flash;12.5|PPB_Flash;12.4”,
“PPB_Flash_Menu;0.2”,
“PPB_Graphics2D;1.0”,
“PPB_Graphics3D;1.0”,
“PPB_ImageData;1.0”,
“PPB_IMEInputEvent(Dev);0.2|PPB_IMEInputEvent(Dev);0.1”,
“PPB_InputEvent;1.0”,
“PPB_Instance;1.0”,
“PPB_Memory(Dev);0.1”,
“PPB_NetAddress_Private;1.1|PPB_NetAddress_Private;1.0|PPB_NetAddress_Private;0.1”,
“PPB_OpenGLES2ChromiumMapSub;1.0|PPB_OpenGLES2ChromiumMapSub(Dev);1.0|PPB_GLESChromiumTextureMapping(Dev);0.1”,
“PPB_OpenGLES2;1.0”,
“PPB_TCPSocket_Private;0.4|PPB_TCPSocket_Private;0.3”,
“PPB_TextInput(Dev);0.2|PPB_TextInput(Dev);0.1”,
“PPB_UDPSocket_Private;0.4|PPB_UDPSocket_Private;0.3”,
“PPB_URLLoader;1.0”,
“PPB_URLLoaderTrusted;0.3”,
“PPB_URLRequestInfo;1.0”,
“PPB_URLResponseInfo;1.0”,
“PPB_URLUtil(Dev);0.7|PPB_URLUtil(Dev);0.6”,
“PPB_Var;1.1|PPB_Var;1.0”,
“PPB_VideoCapture(Dev);0.3|PPB_VideoCapture(Dev);0.2”,
“PPB_View;1.0”
]
}

thanks for all your help.

71

What about copying/pasting the .dll in to the Dragon folder and then having it do the search - do you think it would do it, then?

72

It’s messy & not recommended.
Would require Dragon Plugin Patches every time either Chrome patches PPAPI or Dragon is updated. Since those updates are never advised in advance, keeping it up to date is dodgy !

Much easier to patch the Shortcut on the desktop, (once as advised in earlier replies) until Adobe is fixed… Assuming Adobe will ever get it’s act together ! Won’t be needed when NNAPI is no longer needed later this year…hopefully ?

To answer your questions…

  1. Forum monitors can’t tell you in advance. To many factors involved & they aren’t Comodo Dragon coders.

  2. Leave pepperflash in it’s original location. Not necessary to move it, if you use the shortcut mod. The shortcut is always going to work. (Refer above again), assuming Chrome doesn’t move it.

  3. You don’t need the .jsn file. It was only included in the previous post as a guide to indicate the correct version of pepperflash.

!ot!
I’ve also removed HTTPS Everywhere from my Extension list. It’s a kludge. Dragon already includes the SSL option with it’s padlock function. Not quite as neat. Just wish Dragon would provide the tick box to exclude Sub Domains, rather than include them.

73

Comodo Dragon 33.1. But flash player problem still continues.

74

Waiting for other month for new update and I have a dime for the problem still continue. So many years CD was my facourite browser, but looks like need to find another one.

75

With Dragon V31.1 there is now a simpler workaround to use PepperFlash.

76

Hi captainsticks,
Your comment is confusing (for me at least!)
Are you saying Dragon will use pepperflash plugin as it’s standard Flash player without the shortcut mod (& not Adobe)?

I hope it will.

77

Hi huntsman,
Yes as long as Chrome is installed in its default location or a copy of the PepperFlash folder is obtained and placed in the C:\Program Files (x86)\Comodo\Dragon folder.
I do recommend going to dragon://plugins and disabling the NPAPI version if it is installed.
Note: Expand the plugin details to see the information for both versions.

78

Was hoping you’d say that…Thanks.

79

The command line switch added to the target field of the shortcut is no longer required with the release of V31.1.
Comodo Dragon ver 33.1 is now available for download

80

I want a browser that works. This flash Player problem is becoming annoying. I’m not going to do a dance with a workaround. Security is great, but I can turn off my laptop and never get infected, too. Of course, I can’t browse the web either, and that is partially what CD is doing to me right now.

Reading through these posts, it seems that Google may be content to ignore the problem. With that in mind, would you please rank your opinion of the relative security of Opera, IE and Firefox as compared to each other?