hi, the technical name for the 'Adobe Flash Player' is Shockwave Flash - it should show up under this name in your list of plugins...

Thanks. I was using the designation that was on my Add-ons Manager before I uninstalled it. (It still shows as Adobe Flash Player, then under that Shockwave Player 19.0.r0. That's confusing to an old atavist like me. )

Still can't change the activation choices, which was the reason for uninstalling, then re-installing it. Don't want a permanent exception for youtube to the "Ask before activating" setting.

i am not sure if i properly understand the issue then - what kind of setting do you want to have for flash exactly?

The default for Shockwave Flash is "Always Activate" but you should be able to change it to "Ask to Activate" -- that's what I use.

To set a site-specific permission, you can use the Permissions panel of the Page Info dialog. While on YouTube, you can call that up using any of these:

• right-click a blank area of the page and choose View Page Info > Permissions
• (menu bar) Tools menu > Page Info > Permissions
• click the padlock or globe icon to the left of the site address > More Information > Permissions

But... for most Firefox users, YouTube now uses an HTML5-based player instead of a Flash-based player. If you right-click the player and check the last line of the short context menu, it should indicate the type of player in use. If Firefox's normal right-click menu appears, it's not Flash (and you usually can press and release the Alt key to access Google's menu behind it).

There isn't a great system for controlling playback in an HTML5-based player. There is a single on/off for autoplay in about:config if you want to try changing that:

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button promising to be careful.

(2) In the search box above the list, type or paste media and pause while the list is filtered

(3) Double-click the media.autoplay.enabled preference to switch it from false to true

On YouTube and some others sites, you may see an odd thing: a script on the site sends a Play command to the player and the button changes to a pause button, you can see evidence of buffering, but nothing actually plays. Firefox blocks playback but doesn't fix the appearance of the controls. Click the pause button and then play to actually play the media.

Or you might consider using an extension like Flash Control that target both kinds of players. I haven't tried it myself recently. https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/flash-control/

YouTube likely uses the HTML5 media player and not a Flash based player in current Firefox releases, not you do not need the Flash plugin for that site unless you would come across a video that isn't available in a format that Firefox supports on your computer.

You can set the default for each plugin via the about:addons page (Firefox menu button/Tools > Add-ons > Plugins).

You can inspect and manage permissions, including plugin permissions, for the domain in the currently selected tab via these steps:

• click the "Site Identity Button" (globe/padlock) on the location/address bar
• click "More Information" to open "Tools > Page Info" with the Security tab selected

Go to the Permissions tab (Tools > Page Info > Permissions) to check the permissions for the domain in the currently selected tab.