Portable flash player for portable firefox

[Concerned User]

Ditching the flash player is easier said than done. I was happy that youtube switched over to HTML 5, but a few sites still insist on the flash player (the cricket world cup site, for example). There are a few ways to make the flash player portable for firefox. Here's one way:

1. Install the flash player in a virtual machine which already has a version of windows installed in it (I'm using virtualbox).

2. Browse to the folder where the flash player files are installed (In a 32 bit system, it should be "C:\Windows\System32\Macromed\Flash" and in a 64 bit system , it should be "C:\Windows\SysWOW64\Macromed\Flash".



3. Lookout for the files titled “FlashPlayerPlugin_16_0_0_305” and “NPSWF32_16_0_0_305.dll” and copy them (the version numbers highlighted in red, would of course, change with each update). 16.0.0.305 is the latest version as of March 1, 2015.

4. If you're using the firefox portable version downloaded from portableapps.com, then browse to the folder “Plugins” which should be in “FirefoxPortable/Data/plugins”. Then, paste the above files which you copied to this folder. A quick restart and a portable version of the flash player is ready.

5. If you want to update this portable version, then you would have to update your flash install in the virtual machine each time and then replace the files. A bit of a pain perhaps, but works fine. Useful for the occasional site which requires flash (and with "click to play" enabled, you should be safe). Tested and working fine in Windows 7.

PS: If you don't want to play around in a virtual machine, you can install the flash player in sandboxie and copy/paste the required files to your portable firefox installation. That also works fine.