What programs are needed in order to play videos on a computer?

[Togath]

After doing a full wipe of my computer to clear it of viruses, I ran itno a problem; what programs do i need to re-instal in order to play (ones on web-pages)videos?
edit: so far i think i need abode flash player as the main one(and maybe the only one, I'm not sure how video players work)

[Eldan]

I can only speak for Firefox, but you need a Flash Plugin, not the entire standalone player.

[Yora]

You need this: http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/

This should give you exactly the download that you need for your prowser and opperating system.

[Omergideon]

Are there any alternatives to flash? I have heard some negative press about Flash so am wondering if I could get an alternative

[Androgeus]

it's not for everywhere but Youtube does have a HTML5 trial (http://www.youtube.com/html5) going on at the moment.

[erikun]

What program you need depends on what video you are trying to play. Flash will work for 90% of the videos you're likely to run across, but there are some that use DivX or Windows Media instead. (Those ones are generally specific video files, as opposed to something embedded in a website.)

For the most part, if you run into a video that you can't play, you should be able to right click and select Properities / Information to find out what program you'll need to play it. However, outside direct links to video files, you'll probably only use flash for online videos.

[Psyren]

Are there any alternatives to flash? I have heard some negative press about Flash so am wondering if I could get an alternative

This seems odd to me, like wanting to avoid Windows because people complain about Windows a lot. Yeah it has its problems, but it's so ubiquitous that it would be more trouble in the long run to try something else.

In other words, Flash is everywhere (for the moment, HTML5 may soon change that) so wanting to watch videos without Flash just means you're heavily restricting the videos you can watch for no really good reason.

[Thinker]

Are there any alternatives to flash? I have heard some negative press about Flash so am wondering if I could get an alternative

Flash isn't secure, but there's no alternative. As has been mentioned, HTML5 should eventually replace it, but that is a slow process. Similarly, PDFs and Java archives are insecure, but are so widespread that you can't really avoid them (though Java is becoming less used these days). You can practice other safe behavior on the Internet to limit your susceptibility to malware, such as running NoScript and AdBlock on untrusted sites, using a separate browser for any financial transactions, maintaining your home network's firewall, and keeping virus definitions up to date.

[GeekGirl]

If you switch your browser to Google Chrome, it has flash built in and auto updates it. Personally I like Chrome better then Firefox anyway, but that's not really what the discussion is about. Its also not an alternative to flash, but its one less thing to think about. I work in IT at a university, we just switch over the labs so we no longer need to update them weekly (but that's another matter ^_^).