Install the Flash plugin to view videos, animations and games

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This article is no longer maintained, so its content might be out of date.

End of Flash support: Like other browsers and Adobe, Firefox ended Flash support at the end of 2020. Please see End of support for Adobe Flash for more information.

Adobe Flash Player is a plugin that allows browsers such as Firefox to display Flash media on web pages. Flash is often used for animations, videos and games. This article explains how to install Flash.

When you visit a webpage that uses Flash and the plugin is missing, you will see the message "A plugin is needed to display this content" for parts of the page that require Flash (if at all):

flash required fx35

Follow the steps below to install the latest Flash Player plugin.

Installing the Flash plugin manually

  1. Go to Adobe's Flash Player download page and download the Flash installer.
    Caution: Adobe's download page may include a checkbox for optional software (such as Google Chrome or McAfee Security Scan) that is selected by default. If you do not clear the checkbox before downloading, that software will be installed on your computer when you open the Flash installer.
  2. When the download has finished, close Firefox. Click the Firefox menu Fx89menuButton and select Exit.Click the Firefox menu at the top of the screen and select Quit Firefox.Click the Firefox menu Fx89menuButton and select Quit.
  3. Open the Flash installer file you downloaded and follow the instructions.
Note: If you are having problems with the Flash installer from Adobe's download page, you can use this Flash Player installer link to directly download the full installer.
  1. Go to Adobe's Flash Player download page and download the Flash installer.
  2. Click the Firefox menu Fx89menuButton and select Exit.Click the Firefox menu at the top of the screen and select Quit Firefox.Click the Firefox menu Fx89menuButton and select Quit.
  3. Open the file you downloaded (i.e. install_flash_player_osx_intel.dmg).
  4. In the Finder, open the Install Adobe Flash Player.app to run the installer, then follow the installer's instructions.
  1. Go to Adobe's Flash Player download page.
  2. When prompted, save the file (i.e. install_flash_player_"version"_linux."processor".tar.gz).
  3. Click the Firefox menu Fx89menuButton and select Exit.Click the Firefox menu at the top of the screen and select Quit Firefox.Click the Firefox menu Fx89menuButton and select Quit.
  4. Open a Terminal window (in Gnome, click on the Applications menu, select Accessories, and then select Terminal.)
  5. In the Terminal window, change to the directory where you saved the file you downloaded (e.g. cd /home/user/Downloads).
  6. Extract libflashplayer.so from the file you downloaded with the command tar -zxvf install_flash_player_"version"_linux."processor".tar.gz.
  7. As the super user, copy the extracted file, libflashplayer.so, to your Firefox installation directory's plugins sub-directory. For example, if Firefox is installed in /usr/lib/mozilla, use the command sudo cp libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins and then enter your super user password when prompted.

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Keeping Flash up-to-date

The latest version of the Flash plugin should perform better and crash less often. To check if Flash is up to date, visit Adobe's Flash Player Help page. If it says that Flash needs to be updated, install the latest version manually using the steps in the section above.

Troubleshooting the Flash plugin

See Flash Plugin - Keep it up to date and troubleshoot problems for steps to troubleshoot the Flash plugin.

These fine people helped write this article:

AliceWyman, Chris Ilias, Underpass, Tonnes, user47661, Michael Verdi, scoobidiver, Swarnava Sengupta, user917725, guigs, scootergrisen, Joni, Mark Schmidt, Angela Lazar
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