Portable browser with Flash (for playing games) (Solved)

Using applications, configuring, problems
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Saladin
Posts: 94
Joined: Sun 28 Aug 2011, 03:19

Portable browser with Flash (for playing games) (Solved)

#1 Post by Saladin »

In the past, I've downloaded several flash games that I'd like to be able to play again. My latest Puppy distro doesn't seem to be able to open them though. Pale Moon tries to download the file from sda1 to sda1. I tried moving the libflashplayer.so file to /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so and it seems like there's already a symlink pointing 64 bit apps there, but Pale Moon still wants to download .swf files. I tried dragging the libflashplayer.so file directly into Pale Moon, but Pale Moon says the file can't be installed because it's corrupt (it's not).

I can get everything working by installing 32-bit Firefox, but this whole situation has gotten me to reevaluate. I don't think I should count on Flash ever working again moving forward. Rather than having to install an old version of a 32-bit browser to get it working, would it be possible to package up a portable browser with Flash already installed so I can get this working with a click? I do have several portable Firefoxes, but none of them have Flash included.
Last edited by Saladin on Sat 27 Oct 2018, 19:57, edited 1 time in total.

mostly_lurking
Posts: 328
Joined: Wed 25 Jun 2014, 20:31

#2 Post by mostly_lurking »

You could try a standalone Flashplayer (also called a "projector"). It's a program of its own rather than a browser plugin and should work as long as your games don't require things like Javascript or being embedded in a web page.

You can get a 64bit version here:
https://www.adobe.com/support/flashplay ... loads.html
Download the "Flash Player Projector" for Linux.

Adobe has discontinued the 32bit standalone players for Linux. The final version is 11.2 - the version number has been "frozen" for a while, but judging from their update history, it seems to be on a level with FP 23. If anybody needs this, they can get it from the Flashplayer archive:
https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb ... sions.html
Download a Flashplayer 11.2 archive (the most recent one seems to be 11.2.202.644) and extract the sub-archive that's labeled "flashplayer11_2r<some_numbers>_linux_sa.i386.tar.gz".

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Another thing: Flash games running from the local filesystem are, by default, not allowed to contact a web server. If your games need to do that, for example to show a pre-game ad or highscore table, you can explicitly give them access by adding them to the "trusted locations". This can be done either with the "global security settings" Flash application on this web page (which is also accessible by right-clicking in a Flash window and choosing "global settings"), or by using the Flashplayer configuration program that you might have in your Puppy's menu if you installed an official Flashplayer package at some point (it's also somewhere in the above-mentioned archive, as part of the browser plugin packages). In that dialog, go to the "Advanced" tab and click on "Trusted Location Settings".

Finally, if your games create save files ("flash cookies", with a ".sol" file extension) to store your progress, they will be somewhere in /root/.macromedia/Flash_Player/#SharedObjects/<random_characters>; local .swf files put their saves in either the "localhost" or "#localWithNet" folder (click the "eye" icon in ROX Filer to show the hidden ".macromedia" folder). Modern browsers often have the bad habit of deleting this too when they clear their own cookies, so it may be a good idea to make backup copies of your game saves.

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6502coder
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Joined: Mon 23 Mar 2009, 18:07
Location: Western United States

#3 Post by 6502coder »

I have a small standard collection of media files of various types that I use when testing out a new distro, to see what media players are installed and if they work OK. Among these are a couple of Flash games (SWF files). A while back I noticed that these didn't seem to play in browsers anymore they way they used to (at least in Firefox and SeaMonkey). But I never figured out why the SWFs stopped working.

Today I stumbled across the fact that as of Firefox 55, a change was made so that the browser will only play SWF files accessed via http or https, but NOT LOCAL files. This fix for this is apparently to go into about:config and change

plugins.http_https_only

from true to false.

This parameter doesn't seem to exist in PaleMoons, but nonetheless perhaps the change made in FF 55 has something to do with Saladin's problem.

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