Adobe Flash Player Plugin and Active X? Which One I need to Install?

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This puzzling question makes me puzzled - which type of Flash player I need to install? It's plugin or it's Active X? :-?

What is a Flash Player? 

According to Adobe: "A Flash player is a cross-platform browser-based application runtime that delivers uncompromised viewing of expressive applications, content, and videos across screens and browsers. Flash Player 10.1 is optimized for high performance on mobile screens and designed to take advantage of native device capabilities, enabling richer and more immersive user experiences."

Whoaaa.. nice~~ In other words, (my words), Flash player is an enhancer - it is capable of working together with other application in order to maximize the full potential from the any device. If you use it in a browser, it enhance the browsing experience. If you use flash in a mobile phone apps, you can use that apps much much better. ;-)

But wait, What is a plugin?
According to Iolo, A plugin is a small program that is added onto another program, enabling it to perform additional functions. For example, a browser help object is a commonly seen type of plug-in.

And, What is an Active X?
An interesting definition from IdiotsGuidetoTechnology - Essentially, Active X is a program created by Microsoft to facilitate rich media playback. It is used by the Internet Explorer program to load other software applications in the browser.

From here we can make a clever guess that a Flash player plugin is a small program that enhances a device, or an apps, and a Flash player Active X is a program that enhances Internet Explorer, the Microsoft's browser.

Which means that if you prefer browsing the Internet using your Internet Explorer, you need to install Flash player Active X in your computer. But if you prefer to use Mozilla Firefox browser, install Flash player plugin instead. And you can install Flash player for both program, just by installing the Active X version. Sometimes your computer might be somewhat different, so install both Flash player plugin and Flash player Active X (in case of emergency).

This installation is way too easy. Open your preferred browser, go to the download page http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/ here, and you might need to choose whether you want to install McAfee software or not, and then you can download your Flash player.

The outcome should be like this scenario, if you're using IE (Internet Explorer), when you click the download button, you get to install Flash player Active X into your computer. If you use Firefox to open the download page, so you'll automatically install the Flash player plugin. This installation is already automated by Adobe website~ :-)

Hope this explanation can help you understand or helps you choose which type of Flash player you need to install into your PC. In case you cannot download from that page, go to Adobe Flash player main page and download it from there. :-)

• This post is created based on question "Flash Player Plugin and Flash Player ActiveX ? : Macromedia Flash" from ObjectMix~

Ooigi.blog: "Flash player is sooo small you can install both without worrying your hard disk space~~"
:-P
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