_Originally created by Tails on [#5363 (Redmine)](https://public-redmine-archive.tails.boum.org/code/issues/5363)_ Free (as in Free Speech) Flash players now do a reasonably good job at playing the simplest Flash files one can found online, i.e. movies. Such software is listed and compared [on the Debian wiki](https://wiki.debian.org/Flash). One of those should be shipped in Tails. We have a dedicated ticket for YouTube (easier YouTube (tails/tails#5476)), so this one is about… the rest. Note that shipping a HTML5-ready browser did improve the situation for YouTube, but not much for other video websites. Next things to do: - Gnash on Wheezy reads all current YouTube videos, we should test: - how does it work on "older\" hardware? - how does it work on other websites? - bring and organize some [test reports from the forum](https://tails.boum.org/forum/Streaming_video_in_Tails/) into here - [Video DownloadHelper](https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/video-downloadhelper/) works pretty well - test [Easy YouTube Video Downloader](http://www.yourvideofile.com/) - JDownloader was suggested by an user - test the tools that replace the Flash video with embedded WebM and/or display them with external player - [FlashVideoReplacer](http://www.webgapps.org/addons/flashvideoreplacer): as of april 2011, stable was broken and using beta was needed - Greasemonkey + [Viewtube](http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/87011) ([homepage](http://sebaro.co.cc/viewtube/?ln=en\)) script - GPL, actively maintained, supports more than just YouTube - install `xul-ext-greasemonkey` package - set `greasemonkey.version` to an arbitrary large value in FF config - set `extensions.torbutton.no_tor_plugins` to false - should now test with the `totem-mozilla` package installed, which may not support the video formats broadcasted by YouTube, and might not be robust enough; `mozilla-plugin-vlc` (15MB compressed .deb files) might be safer bet. - If we decide to go the Gnash way, we’ll need to research the privacy/anonymity issues it may have. # Resources ## BetterPrivacy Does BetterPrivacy support Gnash / swfdec / whatever? This is what’s said about [BetterPrivacy](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6623) in the [Torbutton FAQ](https://www.torproject.org/torbutton/torbutton-faq.html.en#recommendedextensions): > Better Privacy is an excellent extension that protects you from > cookies used by Flash applications, which often persist forever and > are not clearable via normal Firefox "Private Data\" clearing. > Flash and all other plugins are disabled by Torbutton by default, but > if you are interested in privacy, you may want this extension to allow > you to inspect and automatically clear your Flash cookies for your > Non-Tor usage. ## Discarded options `youtube-dl`, `clive` et al.: work pretty well, but not as user-friendly as a UI integrated into the web browser. `get-flash-videos` from sid works nicely in Tails; its `-p` option plays the video in Totem. 400kB with dependencies. But… it is command-line only. Might be better than nothing as a temporary solution. Note that `cclive` is the one, in this category, that will be nicely maintained in stable updates during the Wheezy lifetime. [Youtube Moteado](http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/75710): not updated since mid-2010. [Youtube without Flash Auto](http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/50771) ([GitHub](https://github.com/Rob-ot/Youtube-Without-Flash\)): currently broken, looking for a maintainer ### Related issues - **Related to** tails/tails#5476