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Actually, they did pursue a strategy to write a mail/news client for Netscape Communicator in Java:

http://wiki.mozilla.org/Grendel

But does it do the tag thing? :)

Nope, but this does.

Stupid zealot. "contact your attorney blah blah blah" indeed.

not all of your problems but, https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php ?application=firefox&category=Bookmarks&numpg=10&i d=14 is an extension that allows you to host your bookmarks on a FTP or WebDAV site. I use it and love it.

If you can't take the time to register with Bugzilla, feel free to use our general feedback tool, Hendrix. Just go to http://hendrix.mozilla.org/ and submit your feedback. A real human being (me) reads all of the feedback that comes in from Hendrix.

- A

I reported the crashing 2 1/2 years ago!

The answer has always been: "Did you try the latest version, compiled last night? The problem may be fixed."

By the time I can test the latest version, there is a new version. I get the same answer again. That's happened for 2 1/2 years.

Bug 204668, Linux/Windows Reproducible Crash Tests:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20466 8
(Remember that Bugzilla does not accept referrals from Slashdot, so it is necessary to paste that link into your browser, while removing the space inserted by Slashdot.)

See also:
Bugzilla Bug 222660, Firefox 0.8: All instances crash. Memory leaks:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=22266 0
This is the same problem, apparently.

I am very thankful to the Mozilla people for all their efforts. Mozilla has changed the world for the better. Can you imagine a world in which we did not have an excellent browser? The world's most intelligent and educated people and leaders need information, and a browser is the window they use to view that information. I've never seen an article which fully described how thankful people are for Mozilla/Firefox, but I often hear thanks after I tell people about it.

However, this is a showstopper bug for me. I often am researching more than one kind of computer hardware. I often have several instances of Firefox open, each with several tabs. When a crash occurs, I lose all my work. (The session saver plugin apparently does not work with the latest Firefox.)

Apparently this bug, which would require some extremely insightful troubleshooting, is not popular with Mozilla people. Apparently no one wants to work on it.

The crashes are associated with high CPU use, sometimes as high as 99% and extremely high memory use. Notice that Firefox never gives back memory. If it is using 200 Megabytes, and all but one window and tab are closed, the memory use will still be 200 Megabytes!

Someone who posted a message about this to another Slashdot story said that the problems appear to be caused by incorrect handling of plugins.

This bug crashes Firefox's TalkBack, so there usually is no useful error reporting.

The problem is the same in the Mozilla browser. I've seen Thunderbird crash that way, also.

I reported the crashing 2 1/2 years ago!

The answer has always been: "Did you try the latest version, compiled last night? The problem may be fixed."

By the time I can test the latest version, there is a new version. I get the same answer again. That's happened for 2 1/2 years.

Bug 204668, Linux/Windows Reproducible Crash Tests:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20466 8
(Remember that Bugzilla does not accept referrals from Slashdot, so it is necessary to paste that link into your browser, while removing the space inserted by Slashdot.)

See also:
Bugzilla Bug 222660, Firefox 0.8: All instances crash. Memory leaks:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=22266 0
This is the same problem, apparently.

I am very thankful to the Mozilla people for all their efforts. Mozilla has changed the world for the better. Can you imagine a world in which we did not have an excellent browser? The world's most intelligent and educated people and leaders need information, and a browser is the window they use to view that information. I've never seen an article which fully described how thankful people are for Mozilla/Firefox, but I often hear thanks after I tell people about it.

However, this is a showstopper bug for me. I often am researching more than one kind of computer hardware. I often have several instances of Firefox open, each with several tabs. When a crash occurs, I lose all my work. (The session saver plugin apparently does not work with the latest Firefox.)

Apparently this bug, which would require some extremely insightful troubleshooting, is not popular with Mozilla people. Apparently no one wants to work on it.

The crashes are associated with high CPU use, sometimes as high as 99% and extremely high memory use. Notice that Firefox never gives back memory. If it is using 200 Megabytes, and all but one window and tab are closed, the memory use will still be 200 Megabytes!

Someone who posted a message about this to another Slashdot story said that the problems appear to be caused by incorrect handling of plugins.

This bug crashes Firefox's TalkBack, so there usually is no useful error reporting.

The problem is the same in the Mozilla browser. I've seen Thunderbird crash that way, also.

If you don't have any Firefox specific material on your site, prefetch is extremely unlikely to have anything to do with it. Firefox uses prefetching only under very specific circumstances -- you have to add a rel="next" or rel="prefetch" to the <a href="..."> or <link href="..."> tags.

Now it could be that someone is linking to your site using such a tag, and IIRC Google sometimes adds the attribute to the first (and only the first) search result, but those are still limited circumstances. Unless the extra hits all seem to be coming from Google, and when you repeat the search query you turn up as #1, that's probably not it.

DNS used for everything else, including kitchen sink

I've always used Firefox for my kitchen sink, but to each his own.

Uh, no, I haven't experienced those problems. But then I've mainly used it on Windows and Linux, so I can't really speak for the stability of the Mac version.

As for feature bloat, I'm not quite sure what you're talking about. They haven't added any features to the 1.0 series, just fixed bugs, so bloat is impossible by definition. The 1.5 series is still in beta, and so that's likely to be buggier than the stable version, but back to the feature bloat question...most of what's new isn't in the form of new features so much as improvements on existing features.

How many extensions are you using? You might want to try disabling or removing some and seeing if that improves performance.

I think he means Firefox 1.5 (code name: Deer Park) if not then the Firefox 2.0 (The Ocho) and Firefox 3.0 plans are availble online at: http://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox:Home_Page

Check out the developers wiki on this plan. Although I beleive you will only be able to use other languages from within chrome.

Mozilla Corp. press release about the 100 million downloads.

We are still working on goals for 2.0/3.0 and are drafting a PRD for its development. Some likely goals include:

* Improvements to Bookmarks/History
* Per-Site Options
* Enhancements to the Extensions system, Find Toolbar, Software Update, Search and other areas.
* Accessibility compliance
* More ... ?

(Note: placing an item on this list does not mean it will not be complete until 2.0/3.0, rather we would like to be done by 2.0/3.0, it may be implemented by 1.5, 2.0 or 3.0)

You can find more information on the Mozilla developer wiki. Here is a page on Firefox 1.5, for example. Some notable features include SVG support, JavaScript improvements, the canvas tag, faster back/foreward navigation, UI improvements, and an overhaul to the extension system (again).

You can find more information on the Mozilla developer wiki. Here is a page on Firefox 1.5, for example. Some notable features include SVG support, JavaScript improvements, the canvas tag, faster back/foreward navigation, UI improvements, and an overhaul to the extension system (again).

"Additionally the Firefox 2/3 roadmap also looks promising."

Really? All I saw listed for 2 and 3 was "The Next Big Thing" and "The Next Next Big Thing". Maybe this is the wrong link?

I had heard that three Brazilian copies have been downloaded!

I'm just glad that with more people using Firefox it means more websites can't ignore gecko browsers, especially since I use the Mozilla Suite. It has has the effect of discontinuing the suite, but at least I can use Seamonkey and get an updated suite, and maybe i'll switch over when they finish the whole XUL Runner, so running multiple applications (Mail, Browser, Chat, etc), wont each create their own XUL baggage.

I'm just glad that with more people using Firefox it means more websites can't ignore gecko browsers, especially since I use the Mozilla Suite. It has has the effect of discontinuing the suite, but at least I can use Seamonkey and get an updated suite, and maybe i'll switch over when they finish the whole XUL Runner, so running multiple applications (Mail, Browser, Chat, etc), wont each create their own XUL baggage.

As a web designer, I much prefer the beta release of Firefox over the stable 1.0.7 release. A number of HTML and CSS rendering bugs have been fixed; for example, anything:hover (using a :hover CSS effect with a non-A element) now works with a mouse wheel (this is broken in 1.0.7). 1.0.7 has some buggyness with rendering complex table-based layouts; 1.5beta doesn't. The instability I saw using older releases of Deer Park (Firefox 1.5) has been taken care of.

Additionally, for people who perfer to use Firefox in another language (such as the far more elegant form of English they speak over in England, or the Latin American Spanish that all the beautiful girls in the world speak), Firefox 1.5 Beta (a.k.a. Deer Park) has already been translated in to a number of foregin languages. Deer Park also is current with all known security problems.

The only issue I've seen with Deer Park is that, on Linux, it uses that new method for choosing a directory to open or save a file in (could somebody please name it for me); this may or may not be your cup of tea. I prefer the older file chooser, but can see the advantages of the newer file chooser.

http://www.mozilla.org/support/firefox/profile

I'm speaking as/for a commercial developer which already has a working port on Linux of a very large and powerful app but can't release because of the license mess the linux GUI/OS is in.

Licence mess? Hmmm...

Have you looked at projects like FLTK, wxWindows, Tk from Tcl/Tk, TIX, the Adobe Source Libraries, or Mozilla's XUL and XPFE etc? It's definitely possible to develop closed-source GUI software on X11 with a range of widget sets without violating licences.

And really, if you're developing closed-source software and want the KDE look-and-feel, you can always purchase a Qt developer licence instead of opensourcing your code.

There is no one-true-widget-set which forces you to open-source your code. The closest thing to a "one-true-widget-set-for-X11", it would be Motif - and even that is free if you're developing for Linux - see OpenMotif...

I'm speaking as/for a commercial developer which already has a working port on Linux of a very large and powerful app but can't release because of the license mess the linux GUI/OS is in.

Licence mess? Hmmm...

Have you looked at projects like FLTK, wxWindows, Tk from Tcl/Tk, TIX, the Adobe Source Libraries, or Mozilla's XUL and XPFE etc? It's definitely possible to develop closed-source GUI software on X11 with a range of widget sets without violating licences.

And really, if you're developing closed-source software and want the KDE look-and-feel, you can always purchase a Qt developer licence instead of opensourcing your code.

There is no one-true-widget-set which forces you to open-source your code. The closest thing to a "one-true-widget-set-for-X11", it would be Motif - and even that is free if you're developing for Linux - see OpenMotif...

2.1. The Initial Developer Grant.

The Initial Developer hereby grants You a world-wide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license, subject to third party intellectual property claims:

     

1. under intellectual property rights (other than patent or trademark) Licensable by Initial Developer to use, reproduce, modify, display, perform, sublicense and distribute the Original Code (or portions thereof) with or without Modifications, and/or as part of a Larger Work; and
2. 
        
3. under Patents Claims infringed by the making, using or selling of Original Code, to make, have made, use, practice, sell, and offer for sale, and/or otherwise dispose of the Original Code (or portions thereof).
        
4. the licenses granted in this Section 2.1 (a) and (b) are effective on the date Initial Developer first distributes Original Code under the terms of this License.
5. 
        
6. Notwithstanding Section 2.1 (b) above, no patent license is granted: 1) for code that You delete from the Original Code; 2) separate from the Original Code; or 3) for infringements caused by: i) the modification of the Original Code or ii) the combination of the Original Code with other software or devices.

You cannot use GPL libraries in non-GPL software. See TrollTechs QT library which is under the GPL or if you want to use it in something like StarOffice, available for a fee.

See the history of the readline library which is GPL and not LGPL. There has been at least one project that was GPLed so it could use readline.

Distributing a non-GPL program that requires a GPL library is a violation of copyright law, unless you obtain another distribution license from the copyright holder of the library. There is a reason the LGPL exists. and why companies like TrollTech and MySQL A.B don't use it.

Like this? https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=30676 7.

click at your own risk (don't).

S

That's a good MS promoter!
If it doesn't run on Windows, it's Jerry-rigged, and pushing companies to write cross-platform software would just be pushy.

Here's a little-known-fact about linux: Many major software manufacturers write software that runs on linux. The ones that don't, are doing it based on marketing strategies. If the market changed, so would their coding practices. As a business owner, I do not have the type of money to back up a Microsoft platform, and I also cannot justify using the software due to quality and corporate tie-ins. When I'm bigger, maybe I'll dig myself a hole and dive in head first (Microsoft said they already have it started for me whenever I feel like jumping).

Honestly, if Adobe made their software for Linux, then I would guess at least another 29 million people would switch over to linux. I just love how software like Blender 3d, Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice.org, Zend Studio, Star Office, MySQL, Oracle, Apache, PHP, and many many others all work on Windows and Linux, and oftentimes MacOSX, but lazy companies like Adobe/Macromedia, Autodesk, and most gaming companies choose to single out one or two platforms to target simply because of marketing strategies.

Microsoft has chosen time and time again to refuse to implement global standards simply because they want to lock people into using their software. Your post proves that their marketing strategy works.

Also keep in mind that hardware working with the operating system says more about the hardware manufacturers than the operating system. Microsoft has been known to strongarm hardware manufacturers to not create linux drivers, and many hardware manufacturers are just too lazy to work with the linux community.

So while Linux, being about half the age of windows, is still lacking in a few areas, it is still more stable and provides enough features for me to use. I still keep a windows box around at work for troubleshooting other users' microsoft office problems, and for running the Adobe Creative Suite, but you can bet I'll be formating every windows box I own as soon as Adobe releases Linux binaries. (considering how closely related OSX and Linux are, I still don't understand why they don't make a linux port)

In short, if industries really did shift to linux, companies that write software wouldn't hesitate to change as well. It is our fear of something different that keeps us on Windows, and keeps software developers from writing linux code, resulting in jerry-rigged solutions like Firefox, Thunderbird, PHP, Apache, Oracle Enterprise server, and others. (note the sarcasm)

Security is close, but as we've seen with recent holes in Firefox/Mozilla, as other tools get popular, their security will come under attack, too.

Don't assume that just because Mozilla.org are as fucked as Microsoft regarding security, that other people are too. Mozilla.org hid a security hole by marking the Bugzilla entry as confidential for five years. Mozilla are not a typical open-source project when it comes to security. Compare Internet Explorer and Mozilla codebases with the KHTML/WebCore rendering engines in use in the Konqueror/Safari/Omniweb/Shira browsers. They have loads of users too (Safari has shipped with all new Macs for years), but they don't have anywhere near the same amount of security problems. Mozilla.org is a PR disaster waiting to happen for open-source, please don't judge the rest of open-source by its example.

https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php ?id=853

Enjoy

I stand by my statement.

"crash" in bug summary:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?query_for mat=advanced&short_desc_type=allwordssubstr&short_ desc=crash&resolution=DUPLICATE&resolution=---&chf ieldto=Now

"crash" keyword (5306 open or duplicate reports):
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?query_for mat=advanced&keywords_type=allwords&keywords=crash &resolution=DUPLICATE&resolution=---&chfieldto=Now

So this is the 5307th. What's the big deal? Zalewski's "mangleme" crashers were interesting enough to be on slashdot because he presented an interesting tool to do testing, but this is just one crash among thousands.

I stand by my statement.

"crash" in bug summary:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?query_for mat=advanced&short_desc_type=allwordssubstr&short_ desc=crash&resolution=DUPLICATE&resolution=---&chf ieldto=Now

"crash" keyword (5306 open or duplicate reports):
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?query_for mat=advanced&keywords_type=allwords&keywords=crash &resolution=DUPLICATE&resolution=---&chfieldto=Now

So this is the 5307th. What's the big deal? Zalewski's "mangleme" crashers were interesting enough to be on slashdot because he presented an interesting tool to do testing, but this is just one crash among thousands.

If you read the bug - https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=30343 3 - you will see that it's a crash which cannot possibly be used to do anything more malicious than, well, crashing the browser.
Annoying to be sure, but harmless otherwise (secunia gave it the very lowest threat rating). The bug happened due to optimization in the compiler, and the relevant code has been reshuffled long since (about a year ago) on the trunk and so the upcoming 1.5 won't even expose you to this annoyance.

Maybe because it's already fixed? Maybe because it's hardly a security issue? This is bugzilla bug 210658, it was filed in 2003, and fixed for 1.5 15 months later.

Nah, get rid of the E, and install IE View! https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php ?application=firefox&id=35&vid=1179

Ok, this isn't really a security bug. It's a crasher. If this is a security bug, so is this one (you'll likely need to cp/paste into new window to open) that I discovered a few years ago.

IMHO "security" bugs are for ones that have an impact on "security". If it doesn't fit that criteria, it's not a security issue.

A JS permissions exploit would be a security bug. So would the IDN issues, and buffer overflows...

but a crasher? I think that's pushing the benchmark. It's not really a DoS... it's a crash/hang.

It would be a security issue if say, it caused 911 to become unavailable, or killed US Radar systems... but not for crashing a web browser.

I think people have been pushing for a while in hopes of getting new security bugs. And that's all products, not just Moz. There are legitimate security bugs, but I don't think this qualifies. IMHO you need to be able to do something that violates security to be a security issue.

I will use this Firefox post to ask something: I think Firefox has a problem rendering divs.

If you go to www.netvibes.com and then open one of the "frames" it will maximize, with the standard colors the maximized frame will be over all the page hiding everything else (the expected behaviour), but if you change the page colors (Tools/Options/General/Font & Colors) to Text: White and Background: Black and then select the option "always use my colors" and reload the page [netvibes.com] then maximize again any of the frames and the background will be transparent.

I thought it was a design flaw of the netvibes page but after doing the same (changing the text color to white and background color to white) on Internet Explorer (Tools/Internet Options/Colors), the page (netvibes) is still rendered correctly.

If you wonder why did I changed to those (white text on black bg) you should try it for one day (configure your screen so ALL background colors are black or less than 0x33 [of a total 0xFF] in R,G or B).

Way off topic but anyway there it is.

Oh and BTW, allow me to rant about a Firefox bug that has not been fixed (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2547 22), And guess what, it was opened on 2004-08-07 14:20 PDT!

Who said OpenSource software was fixed faster than closed source uh?

ok, enough for a rant

Great example of more FUD for the fire (no pun intended). Why just post a bug report to the bug list like everyone else when you can make a 'proof of concept' bug, post it on slashdot and increase visitors to your site? No no, we can't go the normal route, that wouldn't make IE look better. All a proof of concept virus does is make all the new people want to flock back to IE

Face it people, Bugs like this are reported and fixed all the time. Just because another person decided to post about their 'proof of concept' on slashdot doesn't mean the world is coming to an end

So clicking on a link can lock up the browser. So what?

How is this any different from this, which effectively locks up *all* current browsers?

<script>
while(true){
alert('Haha!');
}
<script>

This is hardly important. I don't see any way this can crash my machine or infect me with a trojan.

PS if you want a fix for the above vote for bug 61098] at bugzilla.

Connect to a US Proxy server. When I signed up for real rhapsody a year ago, I had to sign up via a US proxy server (I'm in the Caribbean). Once signed up they didn't check my location for ordinary streaming sessions...but even if they did, there's plenty of free fast US proxy servers around. Google search for them and also download the nifty firefox proxy button extension to make switching between your normal connection and the proxy easy. Good luck.

Firefox Bugzilla has a bug request (copy and paste URL): https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=61098

Unfortunantely, no one thinks it's worth the time to implement.

"Quick Description:

"ScrapBook is a Firefox extension, which helps you to save Web pages and easily manage collections... Save Web page; Save snippet of Web page; Save Web site; Organize the collection in the same way as Bookmarks tree; Full text search and quick filtering search of the collection; Editing of the collected Web page; Text/HTML edit feature resembling Opera's Notes."

Editor's Review
"Incredible page management -- June, 2005 Editors Pick"

"Do you save a lot of webpage files to your computer, but hate how they're formatted or take up so much space in your folders? Well, ScrapBook is the solution for you. This handy sidebar integrates itself into Firefox to provide wonderful management of saved pages (all of the files are hidden nicely in your profile folder), and you can add comments and edit the saved page as much as you like. A must-have for avid offline browsers. "

https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php ?id=427

This is so much better than "Save Page..." since I get an integrated search, and can knock-out ads and superfluous text (if the original page didn't give you a Print option). Sometimes I just highlight the desired text/images, right click and choose Capture instead of getting the whole page. The archives Scrapbook creates are HTML in a mozilla sub-folder that can be easily copied. Can even handle linked pdfs, audio and video if desired and it can jump back to the original URL.

I've found it useful for news clippings, tech articles, documentation and 'keepsake' pages. :) Much better than going back to Google to recall stuff. (BTW, I'm not associated with the Scrapbook authors... I just love this thing!)

Perhaps if someone wanted to take it to the next level, they could print out the more significant articles as they are captured, and make a note in the comment field that the page exists in the paper archive.

Probably when microsoft releases something similar to mozilla's xul Java web start, for all of its apparent usefulness, has a bad name with webheads, which means it will not see adoption anywhere. Technologies like xul are, imo, the end point that ajax will eventually come to. This will probably take years to accomplish, and will also require some kind of solution to the "but it does not work on my wireless/cellular palm/phone/webtv/toaster" issue.

Probably the biggest improvement I've had in browsing came after I starting using Firefox with the Adblock extension. With wildcards, it took only a couple minutes to setup some filters that stop around 99% of all ads.

Probably the biggest improvement I've had in browsing came after I starting using Firefox with the Adblock extension. With wildcards, it took only a couple minutes to setup some filters that stop around 99% of all ads.

Write an award-winning browser or desktop environment?

You want the AdBlock Extension to Firefox ( it may take several re-loads to get that page loaded ).

Don't like a particular kind of something that appeared in yer browsing?

Either
a) click on the AdBlock thingy in the right-end of the status-bar, and you get a window displaying all the blockable elements, or
b) right-click on the element-to-block itself, and AdBlock it.

One of the first I do is create an item "*.swf", which eats all shockwave/flash from my browsing ( it can be set to remove elements from before Firefox gets to see 'em ). It renders some sites non-viewable, but since those sites won't-allow blind-users access to their product/service, they don't need me either, do they? ( should I subsidize corps(es) that oppose the inclusion of older friends/relatives? or eyeball-injured people? )
Why not just remove the shockwave player plugin? Because sometimes, I have to have swf support ( some fsckhead provider of something I have to get access to, for whatever reason, like support on some product I'm stuck working-with ) and it's easier to temporarily remove that AdBlock item than it is to download/install/update the swf rpm.

Then I go hunting for bad ones, hitting more popular sites and seeing what one can eradicate from 'em. . . building-up a good collection of the things. . .

http://ads.*.* is another. /recip/ is another, since it seems to usually-be a big reciprocal-google-bombing arrangement.

Lots of ways to get AdBlocker to eat stuff that is bad.

Being back in linux ( yayyyy! ) I'm finding that I really wish the extension worked with Konqueror, but probably I'll just copy-out the domain-names from AdBlock and put 'em into a hosts file with addresses of 0.0.0.0. More bother to do, but it'll kill 'em for Konq & everything else, too.

Some people use some of the anti-sleaze 'hosts' files kicking 'round on the 'net, instead-of, or as-well-as, this

I have 4 computers at home (2 windows, 2 linux), the one I use as my internet sharing server is a little p166 (32mb ram) chugging happily away with a linux distro http://www.ipcop.org/ with a little bit of help in filling my /etc/hosts file in sites to block Mike Skallas' Ad blocking hosts file as well as my own little shortlist of unwanted websites.

having a seperate computer as a firewall helps prevent a lot of spyware crap from raping my net connection with unneccesary data and prevent infection from easy exploits.

Combined with the fact I use firefox http://www.mozilla.org/ I get a pretty good ad-reduced experience. And if I want to kill a lot of adverts off when going for a browse onto possibly dodgy websites (be it crappy homepages, dodgy services, and porn [for those of you who still don't have girlfriends!]) depending on what I'm doing I'll kill client side scripting (Java/Javascript) to take things one step further.

As well as running "Spybot" occasionally and doing the odd "free" virus scan from a couple of antivirus websites. my net experience has been reclaimed to an acceptable level on a low budget.

If I'm feeling really paranoid I'll boot up my normal windows machine with knoppix instead of windows so I can go carefree onto any website without fucking it up with windows-targeted spyware

Oh yeah, my homepage is colinnashonline.com for those who are bored

a prebuilt adblock list that even has an extension to auto-update.

I always use the Adblock Firefox extension. This is mostly due to the large flash ads that often are very obtrusive.

If the ads were slightly less obtrusive, say like the Google text ads, I would consider turning the blocker off.

For example, looking at the website for a Swedish magazine called Aftonbladet without blocking ads will easily distract me from the main content because of the large flash based obnoxious ads.

I use https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php ?id=722&application=firefox firefox add-on to block all javascript so no mystical ad pops up from anywhere. Yes it does block even non-ad content but i can judge from the general look of the page whether to enable it or not. Great little add-on.