Helping people with computers... one answer at a time.
Adobe Flash is a nearly ubiquitous tool for displaying video on the web. You must install if, of course, but often that's not enough.
How to I turn on Flash Player? When I go to the download site for Adobe the banner says that I have flash installed. Then I go to a website that I know has flash and it says "This site requires that you have flash player." I have already tried re-formatting to no help.
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Wow. Reformatting sure seems like overkill for a problem like this. Reformatting's a pretty major step, and not something I'd recommend without investigating things deeply.
I'm not sure what might be the problem in your specific case, but I can tell you this: there's at least one excruciatingly simple reason that Flash might not show up on many web sites, even though you've installed it.
In a word: JavaScript.
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What most sites don't tell you is that yes, you need Flash installed, but you also need JavaScript enabled. This might not be true for all sites, but it's certainly true for the vast majority using Flash that I visit.
In my case, I run the FireFox extension "NoScript" which disables Javascript on all sites, except for those that I explicitly allow. So each time I visit a new site that uses Flash, I get the message "You must install Flash", when in fact all I need to do is tell NoScript to enable Javascript. Doing that the page and Flash video work just fine.
In most cases, Javascript is enabled by default. But just in case, let's review how you turn on Javascript in IE7 and in FireFox.
Enabling Javascript in IE7
On the Tools menu, click Internet Options, and then click on the Security tab. This dialog should result:
Click on Custom Level.... In the resulting dialog scroll down until you see Active Scripting:
Make sure that Active Scripting is set to Enable.
Enabling Javascript in FireFox
Click on the Tools menu, and then the Options menu item. Click on the Content tab and you should see something similar to this:
Make sure that Enable Javascript is checked.
Risks?
In my opinion, Javascript is not risky, unless you're regularly visiting risky or questionable sites, so I typically recommend people go ahead and run with it enabled. However, we've even recently seen a theoretical scary vulnerability in most routers that could be exploited via some malicious Javascript, so I might consider rethinking that stand.
As I mentioned above, I recently started using NoScript, an extension for the FireFox browser which makes managing Javascript on a per-site basis a snap. Javascript is disabled on all sites except those you specifically allow. When you visit a site, you can quickly and easily add it to the allow list or return it to the block list with just a couple of clicks.
You can do roughly the same in Internet Explorer by adding sites to the "Trusted Sites" list, but the advantage of NoScript is simply ease of use. Literally a couple of clicks to add or remove a site from block list, and you're on your way.
Article C2960 - March 12, 2007
Leo A. Notenboom has been playing with computers since he
was required to take a programming class in 1976. An 18 year career as a programmer at Microsoft soon followed.
After "retiring" in 2001, Leo started Ask Leo! in 2003 as a place for answers
to common computer and technical questions. More about Leo.
Hi, I have a problem with LIVESTRAM on one particular site.
Posted by: Anna at August 29, 2011 12:53 PMI have IE8 and Windows SP3 and the most recent adobe flash-player.
Flashplayer still works fine on youtube and also on some other livestream sites, but not on that one certain livestream-site, where it used to work just fine before and where I would love to get back to again. It`s been 8weeks now, aproximately, since I can not watch it online there anymore.
All of a sudden and for aparently no reason,
it didn`t show off the screen there anymore, instead it keeps telling me, that I will have to install adobe flash player..... ;-/
I tried everythingto make it work again, uninstalled everything and reinstalled it,
but that particular livestream just won`t work.
No one seems to know advice naymore....;-(
I also checked the add-ons, like you wrote here before, they`re all enabled,
also shockwave and so forth.
I even called up that live-stream-site,
but they told me, that they hadn`t change anything there on that site....hhmmmm....
Can anybody help me? Thanx a lot already, Anna
Thank you sooooo much Lashune! I've been trying to do a university assignment all day and have not been able to get an application to run due to this problem! I have been so ridiculously stressed, thank you again I can now relax and start working on it! A few hours behind but at least I can get it done now! :)
Posted by: Erin at October 6, 2011 9:58 PMI was hoping there would be a secondary solution for what happens if Adobe Flash continues to not work even after enabling javascript on IE.
Posted by: Kevin at October 10, 2011 2:58 PMInternet Explorer 9 has an issue with this as well, if enabling javscript and ensuring flash is enabled it still doesn't work, go to programs and files in control panel, check to view updates, find internet explorer 9 in the list (under windows updates) and uninstall it - this will revert to internet explorer 8 and it should work.
Posted by: Clint at November 29, 2011 6:32 PMI keep downloading Flash Player but it won't recognise that I have downloaded it? I have done the Enable Scripting function, but I don't have a tickbox for Javascript?
18-Dec-2011