Real Player in Firefox

Posted on August 4, 2004 to
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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.

Comments (32)

By Motley Fool on August 23, 2004 at 10:58 am

Sweet! That works - thanks for the tip!

By Jeff on August 31, 2004 at 10:47 pm

I have Firefox and I needed to do the same thing. I used a program called real alternative instead of real player. I just made sure that during the setup I checked the box to install the plugin in Mozilla. I had to browse to the plugin directory for firefox because the setup program had it pointed to the wrong directory.

All is well. Works great. Thanks for the info.

By bikerboy on September 10, 2004 at 6:46 pm

Well I did that and it worked like a charm, thanks for taking the time to excplain this to everyone who might take an interest to read this helpful article. :)

By a on September 13, 2004 at 11:58 am

I tried installing the file and grabbing the dll from the temp directory, but it just installed the entire program without asking me to proceed to the next step. You must have meant to download the player from the official real website. I followed this link:

ftp://ftp.netscape.com/pub/netscape6/english/6.1/windows/win32/xpi/nsrp8.exe

You should clarify that.

By Chad Everett on September 13, 2004 at 1:11 pm

I didn't actually need to download the player from Real or from Netscape, as I had it archived on my PC. As such, I only provided the link in case someone else needed it. I do not provide the hosting for the link, vouch for the particulars of the link, or even know if it works. It seemed to when I check it out earlier. It may not any longer.

In any case, when I did the install, and it worked, I performed the steps as I listed them here. I am sorry if you had problems with it, and I hate dissatisfied customers. Send me your name, address and social security number and I'll refund the money you provided me for this service.

By a on September 18, 2004 at 1:07 pm

heh. thank you for your quick refund.

i was able to uninstall it and haven't noticed any problems. i haven't tried opening Real files though.

on my other computer, i loaded the install from their website RealPlayer 10 GOLD or whatever, and I was able to sneak out the nppl3260.dll file without actually installing it. i copied the file to C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\plugins, cancelled the installation, restarted firefox, and

RealPlayer(tm) G2 LiveConnect-Enabled Plug-In (32-bit)

showed up in my about:plugins. now how do i test it? i'm not able to open up just any old files, so i guess it's for "embedded" content? sigh. i guess it's not what i was looking for after all...

By NA on October 9, 2004 at 1:42 pm

Another possible alternative is Real Alternative. I just recently switched to FIREFOX from IE. I had the problem of not being able to play real player content in Firefox so I tried uninstalling Real One and then happened upon "Real Alternative". This lighter player doesn't seem to carry all the "junk" along with it that Real One does--and it installed perfectly as a plug-in into Firefox.

Just watched streaming news content from FNN: http://www.fnn-news.com/ no problems (and it actually loaded noticeably faster than when I was using Real One)

By JonSmith on October 15, 2004 at 1:51 pm

Where did you get Real Alternative?

By Vijay on November 4, 2004 at 10:44 pm

Thanks! It did not exactly worked that way but reminded me of a similar tip I followed for Netscape browser earlier.
All I did was to copy following 4 files from a existing real player installation directory -
your_local_drive\Program Files\Real\RealPlayer\Netscape6
nppl3260.dll
nprjplug.dll
nprpjplug.dll
nppl3260.xpt

to firefox directory -
your_local_drive\Program Files\Firefox\plugins

and it worked even without browser restart!
I did that on Win2k but should also work on XP.

- Vijay

By SonRize on November 10, 2004 at 6:33 pm

I have a computer that came with Real pre-installed, so how can I get the plug-in to work then? I tried Vijay's tip, but there was no netscape directory whatsoever.

By Chad Everett on November 10, 2004 at 8:57 pm

I'd recommend trying the original article, as it should still work.

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