February 22, 2005

• ahh. Thanks. Now if only it didn't animate its own icon...
• ActuallySettle - Thanks for making my day with the "eat my ass" snip. I'm kinda bored, and needed a pick-me-up. Much appreciated.
• Firefox, its integrated "no popup" features, and Flashblock have all made my Internet experience immensely better than compared to a few years ago. And the days of spyware sneaking onto my computer are over. How much better can it get?
• I couldn't get it to, y'know, actually block anything. Tried macromedia.com, shockwave.com, and some flash games that were bookmarked, and all showed up as happy as could be. So I uninstalled it. 'Tis a shame, really. I would've liked it just to block annoying flash ads that don't always come with sound default off.
• chimera (and other mozilla/firefox users plagued by flash ads), check out adblock.
• I have adblock, and love it. Another very helpful thing is to get frequent updates for your HOSTS file (if you're on Windows). A google search on "HOSTS file" will pop up a lot of good resources.
• Correction -- I have Adblock, not Flashblock, so I can't vouch for the latter. But I'm not having any Flash intrusions.
• Then aren't annoying flash ads already... oh wait, right, you probably want them blocked automatically, without having to add them to adblock. And it's chimaera. Right then, carry on.
• Safari users can block flash (and/or other annoying stuff on the web) using PithHelmet.
• You say chimera, I say chimaera. It's all good. :)
• Hah! I don't even have Flash installed in Firefox. I use IE exclusively for dealing with Flickr, which is the only website I have seen that makes constructive use of Flash.
• Oh, and a quick Adblock tip: block by domain and directory wildcards. E.g. I block */ad/*, */ads/*, etc., as well as http://*.adserver.*/, etc. I haven't yet missed anything those blocks have caught.
• Wow, Flashblock actually works. Sweet. Those flash ads are real headaches.
• I wouldn't give up on it so soon. I don't have firefox on this machine, so I can't try it just yet. But maybe it blocks flash movies not from the same domain as the page? This would block most ads, while letting through flash movies about pie and squirrels. It would probably not work on the movies from macromedia.com.
• Hm, what about Quicktime movies about pie?
• Ah, hadn't thought of that theory, smallish bear. I'll reinstall later today and see what happens.
• smallish bear: But maybe it blocks flash movies not from the same domain as the page? I've got FlashBlock installed on Mozilla 1.7 and it blocks all Flash/Shockwave content. Even the movies about pie. On the other hand, I've had mixed luck intsalling Mozilla extensions - sometimes they just don't seem to work right for reasons I've never been able to figure out. I'd suspect an installation problem. MCroft: Now if only it didn't animate its own icon... Huh? On my system, the click-to-play icon has a mouseover effect, but it doesn't dance or anything.
• Thanks for this-- absolutely excellent.
• that's why i prefer adblock - you can block individual ads, or by domain, or by wildcards (ie, */ads/*) so i can pick and choose the content i want to see. as for the 'advertising-equals-life-for-small-sites' argument... well, i donate to sites i like via paypal. i'd prefer to give you money if i like your site than for you to get money by pissing me off. maybe it's not a great argument but its how i think things should work, dammit!
• I use both ad block and flashblock, and they've both transformed my internet experience. The 'click to play' means I can choose whether I want to see flash content or not (most of the time I choose not to). It did make me realise how many band sites use way too much flash in their design as well.