Force Flash video on YouTube in Firefox

When you visit the popular video hosting site YouTube in the recent version of Firefox, Adobe Flash is no longer being used by default to stream videos to the device.

HTML5 video is being used instead and there is no option on the site itself to change that. You were able to toggle between HTML5 and Flash video until recently on http://www.youtube.com/html5 but that option is no longer available when you connect using the Firefox web browser (it is also not available in other browsers such as Google Chrome).

You can right-click on any video playing on the site to see whether Adobe Flash or YouTube is being used to stream that video.

YouTube may switch to Flash automatically but there is no option to control that manually without the use of add-ons or other tweaks.

The Firefox add-on YouTube Flash Video Player gives you an option to select which video player you want to use on the video hosting site.

It is set to use Flash Player automatically and if you are okay with that you don't have to do anything after installation.

When you visit YouTube afterwards you will notice that Adobe's Flash Player is being used to stream the videos provided that it is installed on the system and active in the Firefox web browser.

The add-on places an icon in Firefox's main toolbar that you can use to switch between both players. It remembers the selection so that you only need to change it when you want to change the player again. If you don't want to change it, simply right-click on it and select to remove the icon from the toolbar as there is no need to keep it there in this case.

It is interesting to note that the selection works on YouTube itself and on third-party websites as well, at least on sites that I tested the add-on on.

The add-on can be useful to Firefox users who experience issues with the HTML5 player or prefer to use Flash instead of HTML5.