A few weeks ago I started using Chrome on Mac OS X as my main Web browser. I had grown tired of Safari 4 chewing up nearly a gig of RAM after leaving it open for a week or more. Don't get me wrong, Safari is a fantastic browser and I wasn't happy about switching. But I can't have any browser chew through a gig of memory even if it takes it a week to do so. Chrome is nearly as fast as Safari (for me) and I've left it open for two weeks without any tab hogging memory. Each opened tab spawns its own process allowing a single tab to fail without affecting other tabs. In general I've found each tab occupies 25 MB to 40 MB of RAM. If you do that math you'll realize I can open around 25-40 tabs before Chrome takes up a gig of RAM.
- How To Set Up Adobe Flash Player On Windows 7
- Flash Player
- How To Install Flash Player On Mac
- How To Set Up Adobe Flash Player On Chrome
Enough about my reasons for switching to Chrome, this post is about the Flash Player running in Chrome.
By default, chrome uses inbuilt flash player plugin. However we can enable the latest Flash Player plugin installed on system to be used by Chrome. 1) Delete the 'gcswf32.dll' from the installdir of the Google chrome.
When I switched to Chrome I quickly realized the debugger version of the Flash Player wasn't being used. When I attempted to run a step debugging process Flash Builder 4 displayed a notification warning me I wasn't running a debugger version of the player. I validated this claim using Adobe's Flash Player version checker.
This seemed really odd to me since I knew I was running a debug version of the player. I launched Safari and loaded the Flash Player version checker and it said I was running the debug version. So I checked in Firefox and received the same result. Why was Safari and Firefox using a debugger player but Chrome wasn't. As far as I understood things every browser on OS X looked in the /Library/Internet Plug-ins/ for two files: Flash Player.plugin and flashplayer.xpt. Whichever versions of these files you had in the directory dictated your installed Flash Player version.
That's when I remembered Chrome has its own embedded version of Flash Player and it manages this version of the player without input from you. This is good and bad. Casual Chrome users receive automatic updates to the Flash Player which can be useful when there are critical Flash Player security updates. For programmers writing software for the Flash Player this feature isn't so good.
I dug through Chrome preferences and found the screen at Preferences - Under the Hood - Content Settings (button) - Plugins - Disable individual plug-ins (text). A faster way to get to this configuration screen is to enter chrome://plugins/ in your address bar. After disabling the default Chrome-managed version of Flash Player the Adobe Flash Player version checker reported the correct debugger version. I was now able to debug Flex applications in Flash Builder 4, though it still told me I wasn't running a debugger player.
For those who wind up disabling the default player like I did, be warned. Chrome automatically updates it's default Flash Player and when it does the plugin is re-enabled. And since the plugin is listed higher on the Plugins page, this version of the plugin takes precedence when two different versions are enabled. You may want to check from time to time to verify you are still running a debug version. Just today I had to disable the default plugin again.
Adobe Flash Player, also known by its former name Shockwave Flash Player, is a multimedia plug-in that powers YouTube, simple online games and zillions of ads on most Web browsers. However, it's also a huge security risk, especially when it's set to automatically start playing compatible content.
To maximize your Web security and defeat the seemingly endless supply of malware that exploits the innumerable flaws in Flash Player, you should change your browser settings so that Flash Player plays only the content that you select by clicking on it.
MORE: 9 Tips to Stay Safe on Public Wi-Fi
This way, you'll still be able to watch YouTube videos in older browsers (newer ones use HTML5), but you won't be bothered by annoying animated ads or infected by malicious websites and ads.
How to set Flash to click-to-run in Mozilla Firefox
1. Click the three stacked lines in the upper right of the Firefox browser window.
![Player Player](/uploads/1/2/6/0/126059631/353993732.png)
2. Click Add-ons in the resulting drop-down menu.
3. Set Adobe Flash, Adobe Flash Player and/or Shockwave Flash to Ask to Activate.
How to set Flash to click-to-run in Google Chrome
![Adobe Adobe](/uploads/1/2/6/0/126059631/130433223.jpg)
1. Click the three stacked lines in the upper right of the Chrome browser window.
2. Click Settings.
3. Scroll down and click Show advanced settings.
4. Scroll down to the Privacy section and click Content settings.
5. In the resulting pop-up, scroll down to Plug-ins and select Click to play.
How to set Flash to click-to-run in Microsoft Internet Explorer
1. Click the gear icon in the top right corner of the Internet Explorer browser window (the one just below the red X, not the one on the Internet Explorer homepage).
2. Select Manage add-ons. Adobe flash player 10.0.0 for mac.
3. Select Toolbars and Extensions in the left navigation window of the resulting pop-up.
4. Find Shockwave Flash Object in the right results window. If you don't see it right away, make sure the drop-down box labeled Show is set to ' All add-ons.'
5. Right-click Shockwave Flash Object and click More Information.
6. Click Remove all sites in the resulting pop-up window. It's underneath the large form field labeled 'You have approved this add-on to run on the following websites.' The field may display an asterisk; you want that asterisk gone.
How to set Flash to click-to-run in Apple Safari
How To Set Up Adobe Flash Player On Windows 7
1. Click the Safari menu in the top left of the computer screen.
Flash Player
2. Select Preferences.
3. Click the Security tab in the pop-up window.
4. Click Manage Website Settings.
5. Select Adobe Flash Player in the left-hand navigation window.
6. Clear the field labeled 'Allow websites to use this plug-in with the settings below' in the right-hand results window by closing out the browser window behind the pop-up (by pressing the red button in the upper left-hand corner).
How To Install Flash Player On Mac
7. Set the drop-down selection next to 'When visiting other websites' to 'Ask.' Adobe flash player for mac is not working.
How To Set Up Adobe Flash Player On Chrome
Jill Scharr is a staff writer for Tom's Guide, where she regularly covers security, 3D printing and video games. You can follow Jill on Twitter @JillScharr and on Google+. Follow us @tomsguide, on Facebook and on Google+.