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Neil Winchurst wrote: > the old version of Firefox and Opera can call up and use flash and/or > javascript as required. This tells me that those programs must be set > up properly on my computer. Well, it does tell you that 'a' version of the plugin is available. It is not necessarily current. Javascript isn't a separate plugin, it is integral to each browser. However, Javascript is notoriously non-standard and can be extremely browser-specific. > However the newer version of Firefox can't find those programs it > seems. Firefox only tries to find them when a website requests the service. That service request comes with a versioning string. If the version available is too old, FF will ignore that plugin and try to find a newer one. > I get a message telling me that a plug-in is required and would > I like to download it? Same websites? Remember, these plugins are generally trying to reverse engineer proprietary protocols that provide no support or assistance to free software developers. Different websites writers will use different versions of the tools that write the non-HTML content. Some websites may offer two sets of content dependent on the versions claimed by the browser. FF won't pay the developers for the rights to read (but not distribute) the oh-so secret code. > I have searched around to the best of my > ability, but I can't seem to find the answer to the problem. I just do > not understand it. Can anyone point me in the right direction please? Proprietary vs free. Until Flash etc. are (at the very least) open source, it's unrealistic to expect free software to be able to keep pace without significant support from the proprietary houses. One way of doing this is to persuade the original developers, another is to simply not use their software and explain to website writers WHY. Standards are there for a reason. Proprietary houses often flout standards to deliberately "stand apart" as a ploy to reinforce their perception of a "unique selling point". It's a poisonous mind set. Javascript is all-but useless without a rigorous and reliable standard - I for one simply stopped using it for any website. Flash is similar. Support the any-browser campaign, complain bitterly about non-compliant websites and find an alternative source of content. -- Neil Williams ============= http://www.data-freedom.org/ http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/ http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/
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