I can't see a reason why it should matter what browser you use, since the browser merely copies the music file from the site to your TEMP folder. The file then must be moved through RAM to your media player, but the file sent to the player should be the same regardless of the browser that made the TEMP copy.

With past Windows versions, it was common to have more than one media player program, usually with Microsoft Media Player (under a half-dozen slightly different names) and Real Player (also several variants) and for some recordings one or the other would work better than the alternative other. Media Player is obviously(?) "designed for Windows" while Real Player, produced by an independent company, was often called "the Apple player."

Both players were claimed to be "cross platform compatible" but some music/media files refused to play on one or the other. In some earlier versions, the OS would "ask to install" the prefered player if it identified a file where it mattered. I have NOT SEEN that happen with Win7, and ONLY Windows Media Player installs by default with Win7.

It is possible that on older sites, the media files might have a preference for "the other player." I haven't found a need to install anything other than Media Player with Win7, but haven't tried to play a lot of files from diverse sites. I've seen no comment on "compatibility" of alternative players in Win7 but it might be worth investigating what exists if you have a problem.

In addition to having a "right player," the sound (media) system must know "how to read the file," and for a variety of file format/encoding types this often required installing an add-on "codec" if your system didn't have an appropriate one. Earlier Win versions often would ask if you had another codec squirreled away somewhere, or if you wanted Windows to search for one. Win7 apparently includes, in default installations, a sufficient variety of these "interpreters" to handle most of what's common now, but might not recognize something posted in the past as a "media file," and wouldn't know it needed to ask.

The apparent need for an alternate player has been significantly reduced with the Media Player in Win7, but it is possible that not all the problems have been completely resolved, and you might want to try installing "the other program," or "another" player. (?) I haven't had sufficient problems to have needed to look for fixes with the current (Win7) situation, so this suggestion is "vague and generic" with no guarantees.

John