Like many of you, I’m getting more and more frustrated with the failure of Adobe to produce a Flash plugin that actually works well inside of Firefox. The two biggest complaints, as ever, are Flash ads that choke the browser and some Flash videos are unwatchable because the video stops every 3 seconds or so.

Through the grapevine I heard the patch-up solution is to download the beta of Flash 10. This stops random videos from freezing every few seconds. But as one problem goes away, a new one takes its place. Those stupid “pop-out” Flash ads that you encounter on just about every mass-media site rely on transparency to hide itself when your mouse isn’t hovering over the add. But transparency isn’t working on the beta 10 edition of Flash yet. So instead of a mostly-invisible pop-out advertisement, the content I really want to read is blocked off with a big white rectangle. Total Flash FAIL.

The Solution: Firefox Add-Ons To The Rescue

Originally I thought Remove It Permanently was all I’d ever need to get these Flash ads off of my screen, but the easiest way to use RIP was with the context menu and clicking on Flash doesn’t show you Firefox’s context menu. This is where Flash Killer comes in real handy. With one click you shut off all the Flash and its obstructions are over! It does leave the original area that Flash occupied with a really fugly rectangle, but that’s OK. Right-click on the fugly and you’ve got the real Firefox context menu to nuke the annoying flash.

The Force Is Strong, But Use It Wisely…

I like to think I play fair with this. I won’t remove Flash ads that aren’t pop-outs because I don’t need to, they don’t get in my way so there’s no need to waste my time with a zero-value-add operation. Hopefully to a website this means I’m leaving most media outlets the opportunity to serve up less obtrusive ads and still make some money.

Now, if only I can work out a good method to block all those 3rd-party usage tracking scripts that never ever finish loading.

Tags: flash, firefox, plugins, adblocking