Real Player in Firefox

I was wandering the web and came across some content that was presented in Real format, which Firefox didn’t seem to support. One problem was that I didn’t have any version of the Real Player installed. The other problem was that I didn’t particularly want to install the Real Player if I could help it, but I especially didn’t want to install the Real One player. I do have a copy of Real Player Basic version 8, but it isn’t currently installed on my system. You can also find it available for download if you don’t already have a copy.

So that’s one problem solved. The other problem is getting embedded Real media to work in Firefox. I tried installing the Real Player, and it installed okay, but didn’t work with Firefox. Off to Google I went. The first page I read had a link to another page with more detail. It turned out that this one was the winner.

During the installation, the Real setup process puts a file named nppl3260.dll in the temporary install folder (the folder is named ~rnsetup, and exists in your temporary directory). The problem is that this file may or may not be installed during setup, and let’s be honest – I didn’t really want the player installed anyway. But the temporary folder is created during setup and then removed. The solution? Start the setup process, then check the temporary files while setup is still running. Sure enough, the file in question was there, just waiting for me to grab it.

I did, copied it to the plugins folder under my Firefox installation, and what do you know? It came right up. Use about:plugins in your Firefox address bar to check the installation of plugins. The Real plugin popped right up – I didn’t even need to restart. I did need to refresh the about:plugins page, however, as I had run it prior to adding the dll to the appropriate folder.

These instructions are for Windows – specifically Windows XP – so the instructions you’ll need to follow on your own installation may vary somewhat.