Windows 7: Looking for best, free, all encompassing media/flash player

Hi everyone,

Not sure if this thread should be here, if not please let me know!


I am having a terrible time with the shockwave part of my Adobe flash player on my PC. The Shockwave player, which is part of Adobe flash continues to freeze, lock and crash FF and IE.

I have:
a)removed and reinstalled.
b)removed with adobe flash removal tool and reinstalled.
c)tried both browsers.
d)made sure I have the latest version, (and every new version still locks and crashes).



Not sure why it does this, and i had made a thread here a few months ago to try and solve the problem, and while it was an informative adventure, it never solved my problem. It makes watching any thing with flash, using my yahoo mail and any site that uses shockwave player difficult, time consuming, irritating and frustrating beyond words.

Is there anything I can replace adobe with, aside from java, that will be an all encompassing media/video player for my browsers??

Any help, diagnostics or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!!!

Which version of Internet explorer ?
Open ie,
Gear symbol/ About Internet explorer.
Internet explorer,
Make sure Adobe shockwave flash element is Enabled, Use Alt+TA or Gear symbol on the top right and Manage add-ons.

Switch to Software rendering,
https://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/149063-internet-explorer-gpu-hardware-acceleration-turn-off.html
Use the (Do I have Java) listing on this page,
java.com: Java + You
See this for flash player troubleshooting,
Flash Player Help | Flash Player Help
Check your Silverlight version here,
http://www.microsoft.com/getsilverlight/Get-Started/Install/Default.aspx
If you see a Blue circle with a slash through it,
Right click it to Disable Active x filtering,

Also available with Alt+T or Gear symbol on the top right and Safety/ Uncheck Active x filtering.

Hey Thrash Zone, (DRI ??)

My PC just now, (when I opened IE) installed IE11. I have not used it long enough yet to find out if there will be any issues with it. Generally, FF is the browser i use, and there is where the most problems occur.

I did check and shockwave is enabled. (FF and IE)
My current Silverlight is: Silverlight 5 (5.1.20913.0)
I should have my hardware accelerators enabled, but the tutorial did not include IE11.

Still having the same issue, anyone else want to take a stab at it?

Would another problem i am having with adobe, on YouTube after viewing one or two videos the videos wont load properly and i must clear my cookies and restart my PC to watch videos again.

The instructions are the same.

Do you have a check by the option shown in the tutorial?

Yup, hardware acceleration is checked in IE11

Then you are using software acceleration (not hardware acceleration) - correct?

What happens when you remove the check by that option and restart the computer?

Well, I am not sure hardware/software, but everyone calls it hardware acceleration. But, I am sorry, I was wrong. When i went to uncheck it there was no accelerator listed in the add-ons box. Must have disappeared when IE11 installed itself yesterday.

I must restate though that the problem is mostly with FF. I rarely use IE.

Sorry that I was not clear.
We are not talking about the add-on box...
...we are talking about this option:




Place a check by that option,,,
...restart the computer
...test your issue.
If the issue remains...
...remove the check by that option
...restart the computer
...go to the next step below.


Visit this link: Flash Player Help | Flash Player Help
Scroll down to step 5.
Right click inside the Flash object.
Select Settings from the context menu.
Remove the check by the option to use hardware acceleration.




We will deal with Firefox after getting IE to work.
You can try the same step 5 mentioned above for Firefox.

OK, I went to Internet Options and the box under the advanced tab is checked

On YouTube I right clicked and hardware Acceleration is checked. Since IE11 was installed I don't seem to be having the issue on IE anymore, which is cool.

In FF when i go to YouTube and right click the hardware Acceleration is also checked, (honestly I always had the box checked in both browsers, but you never know if it became unchecked!) But now I cannot get the dialog box to close and the videos wont load- see screen shot. In fact I can neither check nor un-check the box at this point!

PS: the Adobe help link does not work for me, the page never loads:

Flash Player Help | Flash Player Help