Re: [gentoo-user] Half error message on attempting to access You Tube from Firefox

[Fernando Rodriguez <frodriguez.developer@outlook.com>]

On Monday, April 27, 2015 1:24:59 AM Stroller wrote:
> 
> On Sun, 26 April 2015, at 3:49 pm, Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de> wrote:
> 
> > The following USE flags were used in my building of firefox 31.6.0:
> > 
> >    USE="bindist dbus jit minimal startup-notification -custom-cflags
> >    -custom-optimization -debug -gstreamer -hardened (-pgo) -pulseaudio
> >    (-selinux) -system-cairo -system-icu -system-jpeg -system-libvpx
> >    -system-sqlite {-test} -wifi"
> 
> `euses system-libvpx` says "use the system-wide media-libs/libvpx" and if we 
look up media-libs/libvpx then its description explains that its about the 
WebM VP8 codec. It would be better if it explained that this is a _video_ 
codec, but Gentoo's USE flag and package descriptions have always been rubbish.
> 
> I would perhaps try rebuilding with USE=system-libvpx and checking the 
https://www.youtube.com/html5 page again.

I believe that option is just a choice between using the libvpx bundled with 
firefox (as recommended by mozilla) and using the system wide libvpx.

> Personally, I would probably also try a later version of Firefox.
> 
> I appreciate that 31.x is the latest stable version, but I doubt newer 
versions are actually unstable in any way, and if I google "youtube html5 
firefox" I find that "Google will enforce the use of HTML5 video on YouTube for 
all Firefox users who use Firefox 33 or newer", "FYI: Firefox 35 uses the 
HTML5 video player in Youtube by default" and "Firefox 37 Released With Native 
HTML5 YouTube Playback"

I'm using firefox 37 and it has always used the flash player. It has fallen back 
on HTML5 a few times because the flash plugin crashed. It uses flash even if I 
open a private session (no cookies) or even if I move the ~/.mozilla 
directory, It also says on that page that the option to switch between HTML5 
and Flash was removed on firefox 33 and I still have it so they must have 
changed their mind.

-- 
Fernando Rodriguez