kaled - 9:27 am on Aug 15, 2005 (gmt 0)

I don't want to hijack the thread but...

If I block flash, will I be left with holes rather than alternative non-animated images? My dislike of flash is not a pet peeve, it is shared by millions of users. If you are reading something, the last thing you want on the page is movement. The only people who like flash are kids and webmasters that use it to try to make money.

Using adblock to block *.swf files would, presumably, let through all flash files called by any other name. Since the content-type is determined by the http headers, flash authors will quickly start to use other names if necessary. Also, as I said previously, I don't like bolt-ons. I am not one of those people who think FF extensions are marvellous. I expect basic functionality to be included in a product. Enabling/disabling features is unquestionably "basic functionality". Also, there will probably be a backlash against Firefox/Extensions as soon as a hacker manages to exploit this feature - I doubt that is a long way off.

If flash isn't installed by default, how did my system become infected with it, and how do I uninstall it? From memory, flash was included with the first version I installed (0.92 I think).

My intention in pointing out obvious Firefox failings was to make clear that big improvements are possible with virtually no effort. These two changes together should not add up to more than one day's work. Of course, if it's designed by committee then the decisions would take longer than that.

Kaled.