How to Disable the Chrome Pepper Flash Player

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A couple of years ago Google started work on a safer more stable version of flash. The Flash Pepper Player (FPP) unfortunately has exposed camera and/or audio related issues and is the default Flash Player for the Chrome browser. There is an inconsistency between the FPP and the Flash Player releases from Adobe and in my experience with my client media based applications, the Adobe version resolves these issues. In this article I will highlight a series of simple instructions on how to disable the FPP and enable the Adobe released Flash Player. The obvious first step is to download and install the latest Flash Player version from Adobe.

  1. Within Chrome visit the chrome://plugins/ page and reveal the plugin details by clicking the Details link on the right hand side of the page:

Chrome plugins configuration 2. Under the Adobe Flash Player heading you should see multiple versions of Flash. All Google related Flash is highlighted under the Location: /Applications/Google Chrome.app and should be disabled by clicking Disable. The Adobe Flash should be located under /Library/Internet-Plug-Ins/ and should be enabled by clicking Enable. Also ensure the Always allowed box is selected:

Disable pepper flash player 3. Next visit the chrome://chrome/settings/ page and reveal the advanced settings by clicking the Show advanced settings link at the bottom of the page:

Chrome advanced settings 4. click the Clear browsing data button:

Select clear browsing data 5. Select the Empty cache and Delete cookies options then click the Clear browsing data button. Finally restart Chrome and you should now be using the Adobe Flash Player:

Clear cache

Please read the following article explaining the confusion over flash versions.

Additional Notes

If you’re finding the FPP is re-enabling itself when Chrome quits, it is due to a bug in Chrome (thanks to @internetsurfing for highlighting this to me). Try any of the options below:

  1. Following disabling the FPP navigate to chrome://settings/ and select Disconnect your google account… then quit Chrome and re-sign in again.
  2. Following disabling the FPP if you have multiple user accounts setup in Chrome, switch user and then switch back again.
  3. Use @internetsurfing’s solution.

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