2by4 - 7:36 pm on Aug 15, 2005 (gmt 0)

kaled, I'm somewhat surprised at your posting.. 'how did my system get infected with flash'? Please, it's because you, or someone using that computer, installed flash. From your other postings, I'd always assumed you were fairly tech savy, but I guess I must have misread them. Firefox has never come with flash, although some Linux distros release it together with Flash. Flash isn't a virus, it doesn't install itself. If you don't want flash installed, then just uninstall it [johnhaller.com]. That page lists several good options.

You seem to have missed what I said about flash not being in the default install package, which is why there is not default controls for it.

You're giving most flash authors far too much credit in terms of them doing something like header manipulation, but in your case, if you really don't want flash, then remove the flash player. This isn't rocket science. No flash player == no flash playing. However, flashblock provides a better route, since you always have the opt in to view flash, which on some sites you need to use the site.

And besides, if you look at the download numbers for adblock, you'll see that adblock using firefoxes are not a big percentage of the total, so it's doubtful that the flash industry is suddenly going to jump into more advanced methods.

But more to the point, if you don't like Firefox's extension model, then don't use Firefox. No one is holding a gun to your head forcing you to use it. There's options, Opera, IE 7 when it comes out will be OK. Your opinion isn't shared by most Firefox users, do you really expect Firefox to abandon a model that is proving wildly successful just to satisfy your particular needs? The reason Firefox is the way it is is precisely to avoid this situation. That's what the extension model is for. Since you don't like the basic premise that has propelled Firefox to almost 10% market share, it's safe to say you don't like the browser. Don't confuse that with the Firefox team having to change their entire development model just to satisfy your individual preferences. That model was created precisely to avoid having to do that, everyone has tastes and preferences, if Firefox catered to all of them, it would be a massively bloated app.

What's particularly odd is that the reason I really like Firefox is that I really hate flash. Firefox gave me a degree of control over which flash I see, and when, that I could only dream about in 2000, especially with adblock. I almost never see flash ads, and when I do, I add the domain sending the flash ad to my adblock wild card blocked list, result: I almost never see flash ads, but can still use flash when it's required on some sites. I can't imagine a better scenario re hating flash. And this is why I use Firefox, it meets my particular wants/needs really well. And for other people, with different wants or needs, that's why people use Opera, or Safari... or even MSIE.