I have Flash Block, I think it is called, and use Firefox. Recently, I noticed I can’t play YouTube stuff with this add-on. I presume that I have to drop this add-on to play YouTube stuff. Anyone else experience this?
I’m in the same situation. Result: I don’t watch stuff on YouTube anymore.
Why yes, you do need to turn off FlashBlock in order to view Flash content. Why would this be a surprise?
Presumably, you got the add-on because you didn’t want to see annoying videos. But you do apparently want to see non-annoying videos. How is a browser add-on supposed to tell the difference?
I am hoping that if enough people do this, maybe YouTube will stop requiring dropping the shields.
I am not sure you can watch many Youtube vids without Flash? 
It was a surprise because previously I could view YouTube with FlashBlock installed. But apparently, just recently, they changed the game. And I can’t view them.
I tried a flash blocking addon, it just limited so much that I disabled it, not worth it IMHO.
You can use a different browser to watch YouTube that doesn’t have flash block installed. I run my work stuff in Chrome (with all shields up), my fun stuff in Firefox (some shields down), and stuff that won’t run in either in IE (no shields). YMMV.
Well, do you trust one of the world’s largest Web sites and video media providers not to serve malware through it’s Flash movies? Be sure to consider the number of users that view Flash movies on the site each day versus the number of people who report picking up malware from the movies (from what I have read/not read, that number is zero but I may be wrong)
If you don’t trust them to not serve you malware, then don’t turn of Flash Block. If you do trust them, then do turn it off.
Remember that people are not uploading their own Flash scripts to YouTube. You can only upload video files. Then YouTube uses their Flash media player to play the video files for you. So it’s not like there are millions of different home-made Flash files sitting on the site like a video MineSweeper. There’s like…two. And they are built and maintained by YouTube for presenting videos.
Not sure you understand the FlashBock. With FlashBock installed a video appears with an “f” on it. You click on the “f” and it plays. Basically you are saying that this video is okay and it will play.
With the recent YouTube, I click on the “f” and nothing happens. I guess they want me to drop the shield entirely, not just on I what I want to view.
This is just what I have experienced. I could be wrong, again.
Why not just whitelist youtube?
Sounds like your flash plugin is broken.
I have flashblock installed and have no problems with youtube. I clicked the flashblock icon and selected “always allow flash on this site”, but that only gets rid of the “click the icon” step.
I don’t know what “lower all the shields” means?
Disable flashblock entirely, I assume.
I use NoScript. Covers the same functionality as Flashblock, but much more, and with finer grained control over what I do or don’t block. I almost always allow scripts from the page I’m visiting, but block almost all third party scripts, and I have no problem watching videos of any sort.
Yeah, I have this issue with Firefox and Flashblock, too.
First of all, harmonicamoon is correct on how Flashblock functions. It is supposed to allow you to decide which videos get played rather than the web designers.
I started using Flashblock because a lot of legitimate websites like the Chicago Tribune and Yahoo would have autoplay videos that played at full volume when the page loaded. When I read news sites, I go through the main page and open the stories in separate tabs all at once, so I don’t have to keep going back and forth. Suddenly sound would come blaring out of my speakers and I had to hunt down which tab was the culprit. I keep the volume up so I can hear notifications for things like email and such.
Oddly enough, it works fine for youtube videos embedded in pages. It only has problems when I go to the youtube site and try to start the video.
running coach, I tried enabling the HTML 5 player and it did not work for me.
I did find mention of a fix here. (Link goes to a Mozilla users forum) I haven’t tried it, because I’m not comfortable downloading and installing code from “some guy on the internet”.
Thank you Shadowfyre for clarifying this.
What I’ve noticed is that certain particular videos on YouTube can’t be run on one of my (newer, actually) computers, and more of them can be run on one of my older computers. But, it’s getting to be that more and more videos won’t run at all for me. I think there are getting to be more and more videos that depend on you having HTML5 running in your browser.
My browser I use most often is old and has (AFAIK) only some very early primitive HTML5 support. I use a Win XP machine when I want to see videos, and that is the one were I’m finding that more and more of them don’t work.
So, based on what I can guess, as more videos appear that are not compatible with earlier browsers, that it’s going to get gradually worse and worse for people like OP and me, unless we all break down and upgrade our browsers.
OP notes, in one of his later posts, that videos display with a play button he can click if he wants to play. I have a separate (vaguely related) request: I wish I had a button in my tool-bar that would toggle JavaScript to be enabled/disabled with a single mouse click. I should imagine it’s doable with a simple Firegox script, but I know exactly zilch about FF scripting.
Flashblock broke for me some time ago. I now use Flash Control in Firefox.
On my to-do list is to uninstall Flash Control and invoke the click-to-play option in Firefox. Directions from Brian Krebs are here: again though I haven’t tried this yet. Help Keep Threats at Bay With ‘Click-to-Play’ – Krebs on Security
I run Flashblock in Firefox. A few weeks ago, YouTube started putting a square “thing” in front of the video so I couldn’t click the “F” and start the video. I would use the extension “Nuke Anything” to get rid of the square thing. Then I had the idea to have Adblock-plus block the square thing and I haven’t seen it since.
Perhaps the square thing I am talking about is invisible to you OP and that is why you can’t click on the video.