just wanted to give a quick thanks and say
that I have resolved (for now at least) the horrible
performance and crashing on FF3 w/youtube flash.
Turns out the fix was a very simple matter.
1. I had installed (via synaptic) too many plugins
or helpers, etc. mainly libflashsupport - this one
in particular was an item discussed in bug reports.
(pulse audio bug, not the fault of firefox).
Some info:
https://help.ubuntu.com/8.04/internet/C/web-browsing.html
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=924410
http://www.pulseaudio.org/ticket/43
Summary: uninstall any/all flash plugins/helpers (gnash too)
that you may have installed via synaptic, including libflashsupport.
*note, for other browsers, you still may need to get other packages
(for example konqueror doesn't work as well ad Firefox does for me
now, but that could be the result of dumping everything as I just did).
2. Then, using synaptic, get the latest plugin flashplugin nonfree.
The ``working`` version (for me) was labeled as v.10 beta, although
its synaptic description calls it 9.0 r124
-Flash on youtube works nicely now, and the video starts
playing immediately (no more grey arrows/triangles that need
to be clicked before the movie starts).