What is npviewer.bin? Why it takes all computer's power?

**Ansus** · 09-Mar-2010, 21:30

**caf4926** · 09-Mar-2010, 21:50

It's related to flash-player in 64bit I think, the package nspluginwrapper supplies it
Flash player is 32 bit arch, this enables it's use in a 64 bit environment.

**gropiuskalle** · 09-Mar-2010, 22:43

Hm, though running a 32bit system, I also have this package:

Code:

kalle@hoppers:~> locate npview
/usr/lib/nspluginwrapper/i386/linux/npviewer
/usr/lib/nspluginwrapper/i386/linux/npviewer.bin
/usr/lib/nspluginwrapper/noarch/npviewer

I remember npviewer.bin being pretty annoying when having watched Flash-content: after finishing Flash it would still appear in my process-list untill manually killed. This got solved by some update I suppose, at least Flash is behaving nicely over here since a while now.

**caf4926** · 09-Mar-2010, 23:09

You can delete it on 32 bit. I have. And flash is fine.
I bug reported this yonks ago, back in 11.1 the same behaviour. It seemed to get installed by default. Yet I remember helping folk who, with _64, had managed to install flash-player and yet not have nspluginwrapper! Strange..

**michael_cheah** · 09-Mar-2010, 23:13

Originally Posted by caf4926

Yet I remember helping folk who, with _64, had managed to install flash-player and yet not have nspluginwrapper! Strange..

I have, and I'm using the 64bit flash player alpha preview.

Adobe Labs - Flash Player 10 for 64-bit Linux

**gropiuskalle** · 09-Mar-2010, 23:13

This explains why I don't see npviewer.bin anymore... yet it doesn't explain why it *was* actually running some weeks ago. Well... thanks for the pointer, caf.

**caf4926** · 09-Mar-2010, 23:19

Originally Posted by michael_cheah

I have, and I'm using the 64bit flash player alpha preview.

Adobe Labs - Flash Player 10 for 64-bit Linux

Are there some advantages here Mike? Other than presumably it not requiring nspluginwrapper?

**michael_cheah** · 09-Mar-2010, 23:26

Originally Posted by caf4926

Are there some advantages here Mike? Other than presumably it not requiring nspluginwrapper?

I've tried the stock flash player, 10.1 beta 1 till 3, and the alpha 64 bit flash player, I don't see much performance difference across them.

So I don't think there's any advantage apart from not requiring nspluginwrapper. In fact the 64 bit plugin does not yet support rtmp, meaning no Hulu etc...

However nspluginwrapper with 10.1 beta is not 100% reliable, less stable than the 64bit plugin.

But I do notice that the latest version of nspluginwrapper in build service is 1.2.2 while the latest one available in svn is 1.3(?). And in fact 1.3 is quoted as "Major feature enhancements" on the project website. Maybe things have improved a bit

**Christophe_deR** · 10-Mar-2010, 11:40

Originally Posted by Ansus

What is npviewer.bin? Why it takes all computer's power?

netscape plugin viewer

It's used, most of the time, to play some flash animations in firefox . Often these are unsuseful commercial ads.
To disable them, you can donload and install the "pref bar" plugin for firefox.
Otherwise you can use the adblock+ plugin for firefox to avoid commercial ads.

Hope that helps.