I've been dabbling with Linux for a few years, I have a computer set up as a Media Server and I dumped Windows and went to Ubuntu when I wasn't allowed to choose the update schedule. Lately on my everyday computer I felt that Microsoft was forcing me into Win 10 and I loved 7. I picked up a used laptop and started trying several different Linux distros and settled on Zorin. I'm in my mid 70's so I have time to spend doing what I enjoy otherwise I would have given up a long time ago. To start with I had to get more drivers for my wifi. Then, after a short time the system slowed down after quite a bit of surfing so I had to get Nvidia drivers and next it wouldn't restart after hibernating so I was able to get a fix for that, by stopping it from hibernating. The most recent challenge has been trying to play videos on websites, different sites would show different errors. I prefer Opera but I tried Firefox with the same results. I attempted to fix this problem with suggestions that I found online such as get codecs and change config files and I broke Opera and had to reinstall it. I still can't play videos on Opera or Firefox but I installed Brave and it works perfectly on online videos but doesn't have the features that I liked in Opera.. I installed Zorin 16.3 on a Dell Latitude E5550 with 16gb ram Intel 5600U 2.6X4 and a 120gb SSD.
Would those be:
sudo apt install ubuntu-restricted-extras ffmpeg libavcodec-extra
I have never had any trouble with any videos on any browser. Is it possible this is regional? Do you use a VPN? Is your firewall enabled?
May need to disable the hardware acceleration; I have it off on my beefy i7 setup. If I don't have it off, it lags.. Also, look for the DRM content setting - lots of videos and such need that to play.
Both settings are about 3/4 of the way down under General.
I did install some form of ffmpeg as well as several other fixes. Brave worked fantastically as soon as it was installed. I think that I will make note of all the apps that I added so far and do a fresh install. I have two Icons in the menu for Opera and can't delete one, so I figure I screwed up a few things. Thanks for the replies.
sudo dpkg -l | awk '/^ii/ { print $2 }' >package-list
yes, with chromiun FFMPEG and it path to opera, because opera one stopped play videos in fb and insta, but play in yt.
interesting, because I have really had zero problems with Zorin.
I am using 'Core', so that may be more enabled than 'Lite', idk.
I do not like Firefox, but prefer it to any Chrome based browser. What I do is use Waterfox, which has it's own built-in updater similar to firefox. But it would not install using the software manager. So I downloaded it from the Waterfox website and unzipped it to a 'bins' (for binaries) directory under "Home". It works great.
Firefox has some 'issues', especially lately, which are really management issues, leadership issues. Waterfox tries to correct those problems.
The tricky part was putting a shortcut to the waterfox binary on my desktop or taskbar. I tried several things. But what worked is something called Alacarte, which in Zorin is called "Main Menu", which you will find if you search it in the standard program menu. You will also find alacarte, but it is called main menu.
This allows for customization of the start menu and the ability to put a shortcut to a menu item on the desktop or taskbar. And this is even possible with a random file like the waterfox binary. You could put a menu item for some text file or picture, etc.
So, atm i am very happy, after going through several other distros that either did not work or had a problem i couldn't live with, like in 'fedora games' distro I could play youtube videos but not those from some other site that i won't bother to mention (russian global tv streamer). So here is Zorin (core) and it did that and some other non-youtube video sites flawlessly, with waterfox, which is a kind of firefox. I haven't bothered to even try firefox out, though i did use it to download waterfox. (the zorin waterfox installer did not work)
So, curiously I do not know how you could be having trouble such as you say, as my install is essentially flawless. Waterfox is at the bottom of the browsers list in the software manager, so i guess lower priority, but they will probably fix it before too long. But if they do not it is so easy to just download and unzip and away we go. The trick with the hyperlink to start it was just figuring out how the main menu works.
Anyway... perhaps like you say do a fresh install and just give waterfox a try. It could be the thing that works. Though I'm still curious to know why the other options you tried did not work, except for brave, and iirc they have a built-in codec, rather than a shared codec. Maybe waterfox also has bullt-in codecs. I do not know.
Looking forward to reading your results of install #2.
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Opera has switched to the chrome engine, which i do not appreciate, as it is google, which I do not appreciate, for reasons. Same for MS Edge, Brave, others.
But we do have forks of the Firefox/Mozilla engine happening, like waterfox.
I believe there are other engines for web browsing as well. I'm just glad for waterfox. It indirectly supports firefox, which is not google, at least.
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