Firefox foxfire

For a long time now I have browsed the web wielding the combined features of Microsoft Internet Explorer and the Opera web browser, who each complement the faults of the other. Today I finally decided that it is time I showed my support for the marvelous Open Source movement and got myself the Firefox browser. Of course, the fact that Firefox is a single browser combining the strengths of both my previous browsers was an added bonus. Imagine my surprise then, when Firefox fumbled on its very first day under my fingers.

There I was nonchalantly bringing up a Youtube video and it failed to display, presumably due to the absence of a flash plugin. "This isn't a problem" I thought, as I calmly went on to download Adobe Flash Player v9. Confidently I reloaded the video after the installation, and imagine my horror when the browser crashed!

Rather annoyed, I went on to try everything from reinstalling the plugin to doing a system restore to reinstalling Firefox itself, all to no avail. Frustrated I went online in search for a fix, and after feeding a few keywords to Google (probably the greatest entity ever to grace the web) finally found my solution.

I must say that I really like all the other aspects of Firefox, from the GUI feel to the browsing speed and tab system, but issues like these are going to tarnish the user's experience. Hopefully this glitch will be fixed and dealt with soon or we're never going to kill off Microsoft. For the benefit of those who might encounter a similar problem, here is a description of the problem, as well as instructions on how to fix it.

Symptoms
After having downloaded the plugin, Firefox begins to play a flash video with no hiccups at first, then the video freezes and Firefox becomes unstable, failing to respond normally. Occassionally a pop up "llegal Operation In Plug-In" error appears with the message "The plugin performed an illegal operation. You are strongly advised to restart Firefox". Closing Firefox and rerunning it restores normality, but only until the next time you attempt to play the video

Fix
Uninstall flash player 8/9 and install flash player 7. This seems to resolve the issue. To uninstall run a search on your computer for the following files :

• NPSWF32.dll
• flashplayer.xpt

Then simply delete them. After uninstalling, go here and download flash player 7. Remember to download the Netscape version and not the Internet Explorer version. Simply download the setup file into any location, then shut down Firefox and run the setup file. Once installation is complete, Firefox should now show flash videos properly.