Perian works in Mavericks! Here is how...

Yes, it's always worked with Quicktime 7.6.6. It is just no longer supported.

http://perian.en.softonic.com/mac

Pete

Perian was certainly great while it lasted. However, any software that is no longer supported, in particular one that integrates with browsers, should be avoided. I loved Perian and installed it on many Macs over the years. But, once it was discontinued I immediately removed it from them all.

The problem is not that anything is know to be wrong with it, but that EVERY browser plugin is a potential security threat -- including Perian. When even actively developed plugins with very large budgets and support (i.e. Java, Flash, etc.) have zero-day exploits nearly weekly now, there is simply no way to trust that an unsupported plugin will stay secure for long.

Therefore, I would highly recommend that anyone still using Perian on their Mac remove it, and then just install the highly trusted and well supported VLC Player instead (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html). I work daily with many Macs and PCs and havn't missed Perian (or Flip4Mac for that matter) at all since I uninstalled it over a year ago and replaced it with VLC Player.

One last recommendation to keep Mac fans safe would also be to use a browser like Chrome and turn on "Click to Play" for all plugins. Yes, Macs are certainly an extremely safe platform, but layered security is important for everyone nowadays.

I'm surprised you recommend Chrome?

Chrome is an excellent browser. It has a modern rendering engine (excellent HTML5 support), very secure (Google pays for bugs and patches them rapidly), it has great sandboxing to rein-in plugins, has auto-updates including Flash, has "click-to-play" plugin security, and works with any OS (Mac, Win, Linux).

If you don't like Chrome just because of the extention issue that was reported several months ago (where a developer leveraged auto-updates to install malware), then you should reconsider. Realistically, the same abuse of auto-update is possible on EVERY "app store" or auto-update mechanism in use today regardless of browser or platform. The same thing could happen to a Safari or Firefox extention as well.

I have used every popular browser available, on many OSs, since the Web was in it's infancy (i.e. since Mosaic). In 2014 there are finally many great choices of modern browsers (Chrome, Chromium, Firefox, Opera, IE 10, Safari). Until about 2 years ago I used Safari as my primary browser on my Macs, but honestly, I now use Chrome on Mac OS, Windows, and Linux because it's lean, clean, offers consistent rendering, and works great.

Do you have specific things that you do not like about Chrome? As a web developer I am always interested in folk's preferences for a paricular browser. Browser choice can often be more of a personal preference, or a result of the advice of someone else, than any technical reasons that people can actually cite.

Chrome has its own Flash PLayer so you don't have to install Adobe's security nightmare player. Click to Flash means that nothing runs automatically, only when you explicitly enable it.

Do you have specific things that you do not like about Chrome?

Tried it a few times. There's nothing great about it.

Much of the hype was about how fast it was, but I didn't see any difference.

From the reports (Activity monitor, EtreCheck) I've seen here, it seems to be quite a hog.

You mentioned some utility in blocking flash with Chrome, but I have that and more in ClickToPlugin. I really like the Javascript blacklist. While it is no longer supported, it works great.

If you are a web developer and want to know what we like or dislike, here you go:

I don't mind web-ads as I understand that is the way things stay free. However, when they start bouncing, flashing, wiggling, playing, or getting in the way of my scrolling, I block them. I also can't stand cpu-hogging Flash crap. When I encounter those things, I actively search out the companies that are advertised and don't buy anything from them. But then again, I've never purchased anything I have ever seen on a web ad.

Perian wasn't necessarily a browser plug-in. It was a "plug-in" for Quicktime. As I understand it, the API that Perian used is not longer available. Since Perian's developer's dropped it several years ago, it no longer can augment Quicktime. It was quite handy, but I really have no need for the thousands of random video codecs out there. If the producer can't use something in common use, I don't really need to see their video.

Actually, it's still being developed. Version 1.3.2 is available via GitHub and it works with 10.9

https://github.com/MaddTheSane/perian/releases

Thanks.

"Do you have specific things that you do not like about Chrome?"

Sorry I didn't answer sooner. Things I don't like about chrome....

1) how it installs mulitple kernel extensions, it really digs in deep

2) how it sends data packets for each key stroke...I consider it BW inefficient (what percentage of the data running through my pipe is info I want versus info google wants?)

3) the number of people coming here for help and chrome shows up in their system (causal? don't know,

correlated for sure)

4) how it bypasses most attempts protect privacy. they knowingly bypassed safari security and were caught at it.

and finally

5) google...they are in the business to learn about you so your behavior can be sold....I cant get over the conflict of interest by them providing a browser.

I'm not a zelot nor do I say "stop using chrome". I just can't in good faith recommend them. I was surprised you did mostly because chrome doesn't seem to play nice with Mac OS. Safari is just as fast, integrates very well with the whole iPad, iPhone world. It seems like a better recommendation.

So... You don't miss Perian features because you don't work in a daily basis with video files. My video customers some times need their videos to be delivered in windows media. I have thousands of videos in avi and wmv in several back up hard disks and every day I have to browse hundreds of clips that now won't open with a single quicklook command.

For me this waste of time now having to open videos one by one or having to convert them to mac native supported codecs instead of the quick look function is a deal breaking issue. And my new near $4000 Macbook Pro is almost a piece of junk if I can't open videos in a second... Time is money and a $4000 laptop should save time not waste it...

I'm very disappointed with my new machine and my old Macbook pro 17 with Mountain Lion and full Perian/quicklook functionality looks like a Ferrari vs a Volks in terms of time saving.

I'm considering a downgrade to Mountain Lion...

Tim Snoots,

Perian IS NOT A BROWSER PLUGIN. We shouldn't have let you get us off of Perian and onto Chrome, since Perian has nothing at all to do with Chrome. Maybe you are thinking of Flip4Mac? You can view all your browser plugins here: /Library/Internet Plug-Ins

You asked for things not good about Chrome, so here goes, and then maybe you can start a new question about why you love Chrome....

– It is old-school 32-bit, so it is not compatible with the new Retina displays (text will look fuzzy: http://www.notebookreview.com/assets/65715.jpg )

– It is difficult to set preferences (a maze of extensive reading instead of just simple check box options).

– It is not as secure as Safari 6. http://blog.kaspersky.com/google-chrome-camera/

– It is not as customizable as Firefox.

– It is not faster than Safari (Using the latest RobotHornet testing). See this: http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2012/10/browser-speed-tests-mac-edition-chrome-22-f irefox-15-safari-6-opera-12-02/

– It quits occasionally on two of my Macs where I use it just for testing.

– It takes up more than four times the drive space as Safari (140MB compared with 30MB)

– It uses six times the memory as Safari.

QuickTime Player 7 with Perian in OS 10.6.8 and earlier could show .SRT subtitles with .AVI. That doesn't work in OS 10.7 or later. That's the main reason the developer of Perian has abandoned it. Most of the people who used Perian were wanting to view subtitles in SRT with QT. I use AVI with subtitles in all my ESL classes, so that's a drag. I keep OS 10.6.8 on a partition of an older MacBook Pro just for that reason. QT X cannot show SRT subtitles with AVI.

Do you know if Perian is still available to download from the developers' site? I couldn't find a download and I would not go near softonic or CNet.

Edit: oops - didn't look at how old your post was.......

http://perian.org

Reinstalled it last week and as efficient as it always has been.

Cheers

Pete