Disabling Flash on Specific Sites?

xrjlx asks: "Does anyone know how to disable flash on just specific sites like cnet and yahoo so that those annoying ads don't come up on the screen. One way to do it is by setting "run active x controls" to "prompt." This gets annoying though because many sites legitimately use them. Are there any programs written that will allow me to just selectively block the use of flash on certain sites?" It makes sense to me that, like cookies and the use of Javascript, ALL browsers should have some kind of by-domain filter that selectively activates whatever set of plugins (including Flash) that provides the user with the kind of web experience that they want, of course, many might see this as too much micromanagement for their tastes. I say it all boils down to a well defined UI. What say you?

Comments

If you're using IE...

[Will_Malverson]

Add the sites in question to the "Restricted" zone.

What we need

[sydb]

Is:

1. Filtering browsers in wide circulation. I.E.'s 'zones' are not very obvious, most users don't understand how they work. Mozilla, galeon and the like have good interfaces for filtering. (right-click, block)

2. Good, free, log analysis software (I'm sure this is already there.)

3. A campaign to encourage web designers / admins to use the log analysis software so they know what people are blocking. Then they might stop putting it up which is the important bit.

Will this ever happen? I doubt it.

Instead, companies will just come up with clever ways to bypass filtering. Block by domain? Fine, they'll use dynamic domain names for the sources.

Re:What we need

[mrzaph0d]

if we have #2 and #3, we'll also have people claiming that it's spyware, complaining that they want to know what you're blocking. as such, the people who know how to block stuff will turn the logging off, and the people who don't know how to block stuff will leave the logging on. so analyzing the logs wouldn't do much good, would it?

Re:What we need

[sydb]

So how will the people who know how to block stuff turn the logging off?

Unless they administer the servers, of course, which they don't.

I take it you haven't seen an apache access log file. That's all the 'spyware' you need, my point was that many places do only a minimum of log analysis because it's laborious and tedious, so it should be made easy and inexpensive.

Look into JunkBuster

[dharding]

For Yahoo!, I use the Internet Junkbuster Proxy. It runs on both Windows and *nix, and should be able to work with any browser. It is able to block banner ads, flash animations, etc. Note however that it does not support for disabling JavaScript popups or anything like that, but for what I do, it is sufficent.

Seems like you're running IE, so..

[acrhemeied]

(from v5.0):

Go to Tools, then Internet Options. Select Security, then select Restricted Sites. The Sites button will become active.. choose that and a window will pop with a list and an entry box. You can enter the name of a site which you'd like to restrict (just the domain name (i.e. 'gamespy.com')) and hit 'add'. I believe wildcard characters are supported ('*.gamespy.com')..

Anyway, once you've filled the list with Flash-dripping sites, hit OK and choose the 'Custom Level' button under the "security settings for this zone". (make sure you're still under Restricted Sites!). From there, you can disable most every irritating browser 'innovation' out there, from Active Scripting (way down at the bottom of the list) to, yes, Flash ("Run ActiveX Controls and Plugins" should do the trick).

To see if the settings actually work, go to the site in question. Two things should happen:

1. Flash shouldn't play if you've turned it off
2. A little red icon will appear in the lower-left bit of the status bar where a globe usually is.