Disabling Flash in the Browser?

fishdan asks: "I know there are a few tools for selectively disabling flash in IE, but there is currently nothing in Mozilla. I'm wondering how many people have just removed Flash (as I have) by deleting the appropriate files? I find it greatly enhances my web experience, and on the very few cases when i think there is something worth seeing in Flash, I'll check it out on someone else's computer. I know someone is working on a 'disable flash from this site' for Moz X.x.x, but I'm wondering what people are doing now? I'm also actively advising people I know to remove Flash because of the lack of control for it on the users end. Short of deleting Flash, there's nothing uses can do to to stop those irritating ads. I don't mind the moderate ones, but the excessive ads are enough for me to throw the baby out with the bath-water."

Comments

Just disable it

[itwerx]

Under the applications screen in your preferences. Flash is listed along with every other file that uses an external app. Just delete the association completely or edit the properties to prompt before running.

Am I missing something here?

"I find it greatly enhances my web experience"

[tswinzig]

Funny, that's what Macromedia told me to get me to INSTALL flash!

To answer your question: yes I deleted flash. When I need to see something done in flash, I load up MSIE. (Hell, it's already loaded in memory anyway, might as well use it for something.)

I am of the opinion that the annoying flash ads are going to be what eventually "does-in" Flash. As soon as Mozilla makes it easy to deal with it -- and it will if people want that -- then say goodbye to our annoying, animated friend.

File me under flizame

[JohnLi]

Just use Lynx. That way you don't have to put up with those pesky "graphics" either. Plus, it probably runs like a champ on your 386. :) doh.

Junkbuster?

[J'raxis]

If you use JunkBuster, add this to the blockfile:

/*.*\.swf

Here's my solution

[hawkstone]

I completely agree. I hate flash. I didn't install it for the longest time, but there's just too much out there, so I gave in.

However, I have a solution. I found these wonderful little "bookmarklets" that work in mozilla. Find them here.

They are little javascript things that remove annoyances from pages, including blink text, javascript, embedded event handles, and even colored backgrounds and text, and background music.

The one you want is called "zap embeds". It will kill all flash from the page you are looking at, leaving almost everything else intact. You can also use the vanilla "zap" which zaps Flash and some other stuff.

I personally put a few of these in my personal toolbar. It's the first good use I found for that toolbar. Thus, one click away from killing flash on any page!

IMHO, the perfect solution. Whoever wrote these is my saviour. Everyone should get these. :)

This involves a restart but

[jon787]

I have a script that moves the flash plugins in and out of the mozilla plugin directory

Cascading Style Sheets

[MSittig]

Harness the power of CSS. In your Mozilla profile folder, insert the following code into the userContent.css file:

embed[type="application/x-shockwave-flash"] {
display: none !important;
visibility: hidden !important;
}

This should instruct Mozilla not to load any Flash objects. Bingo.

Taken from this thread in Mozillazine.

-ms

Re:Ummm

[ProfessorPuke]

He's asking for a more balanced, flexible solution than a big boolean "Install Flash (yes/no)".

Two big problems with your "just don't install it advice"

0. If Flash isn't installed, then every time mozilla opens a page with embedded SWF files you get a dialog box "Click here to install the plugin". A painful interference, one that can happen several times per page if they are heavy on the Flash banner + Flash navbar + Flash mouseover miniad.

1. Most Flash is for ads, but some sites present their actual content in Flash (web-cartoons), and many more work it into the intro-page or navigational frame so that Flash becomes a barrier to reaching the content. In both those cases, you'd desire a toggle-switch to quickly enable/disable Flash depending on whether you need to see it at the moment.
(The zap-embeds bookmarklet trick is good, but not quite optimal)

Disabling Flash on Mac OS X

[jpkunst]

I went to /Library/Internet Plugins/ in the Terminal, and issued this command:

chmod 600 Shockwave\ Flash\ NP-PPC

Now the web browser is no longer allowed to access the Flash plugin. Simple, and good enough for me.

JP