<br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 1/30/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Edward D. Browne</b> <<a href="mailto:Browne@t-online.de">Browne@t-online.de</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<br>Is it just me, or is there something brain-dead about this whole browser<br>plugin thing? Using Firefox <a href="http://2.0.0.1">2.0.0.1</a> (but I think this happens with all/most<br>browser/version), I'm sure you've all had this experience, for certain spots
<br>in certain webpages where you don't have the needed plugin, it shows you the<br>little green jigsaw puzzle piece. If you click on it, it claims to go<br>looking<br>for plugins to install. But it doesn't seem to have any way of knowing
<br>the plugin that's needed *for that web page* (although it does waste your<br>time finding other, unrelated plugins, which it usually is not able to<br>install<br>automatically anyway.) Sorta the web-browser equivalent of the (from the
<br>old Unix 'fortune') car with the single red idiot light with a question<br>mark, the<br>point being, when it lights up, anyone who knows his car will know what<br>it's<br>trying to tell you. Even if I ignore this useless feature - how do I
<br>find out<br>what plugin I do need (other than poring over the HTML source, which may<br>not even be decipherable by me)? I see the option in "about:" where I<br>can stop<br>it from prompting me for plugins to download, but how about the option where
<br>it tells me what plugin is needed?<br><br>Thanks - Ed<br><br>_______________________________________________<br>CALUG mailing list<br><a href="mailto:CALUG@unknownlamer.org">CALUG@unknownlamer.org</a><br><a href="http://unknownlamer.org/cg">
http://unknownlamer.org/cg</a></blockquote><div> </div><br>For me, clicking on the "green puzzle piece" usually brought up a wizard that tries to find the needed plugin and install it for you. For the Flash player, this has worked for me automatically with no problem. Quicktime and Realplayer are another thing. But, the wizard has usually told me what the plug is, it just fails to install it.
<br><br>For Windows, I typically manually install the Quicktime Alternative and Realplayer Alternative to avoid all the extra crap the "official" players bring along. Having those three (flash, quicktime, real) installed has pretty much taken care of what's needed for all my browsing needs.
<br><br>Quicktime Alternative - <a href="http://www.free-codecs.com/download/QuickTime_Alternative.htm">http://www.free-codecs.com/download/QuickTime_Alternative.htm</a><br>Realplayer Alternative - <a href="http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Real_Alternative.htm">
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Real_Alternative.htm</a><br><br>For Linux, I compile and install mplayer with the essentials codec pack. Then I install the mozilla/firefox mplayer plugin. That's worked like a charm for me on many installs.
<br><br><a href="http://www.mplayerhq.hu/">http://www.mplayerhq.hu/</a><br><a href="http://mplayerplug-in.sourceforge.net/">http://mplayerplug-in.sourceforge.net/</a><br><br>Keith<br><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
i-bin/mailman/listinfo/calug<br></blockquote></div><br>