Techniques to easily disable flash in Firefox and IE
I get asked quite often about how to temporarily disable flash in Firefox and IE. Although there are Firefox Add-ons like Adblock and Flashblock, these don’t actually deactivate the plugin. They simply replace flash elements with static elements. For testing purposes its important to understand exactly what users without flash will see. With that in mind, here are two techniques I use to quickly disable the flash plugin in Firefox 3 and IE 7.
Firefox 3: Disable flash plugin
Firefox makes it very easy to disable any browser plugin. Simply go to Tools->Add-ons->Plugins. Select “Shockwave Flash” from the list of plugins and click the disable button. Thats it. No need to restart. When your ready to activate flash again simply follow the same steps. Screenshot not good enough for you?
Internet Explorer 7: Toggle Flash
Toggle Flash is a toolbar button that executes a script to temporarily disable flash in the browser. Again, no need to restart. Click the button and flash is disabled. When your ready to re-enable flash just click the button again. There is one quirk in that it dosent have any sort of visual feedback on whether flash is enabled or disabled. You sort of have to just remember. Regardless its a simple and very useful tool.
There is one quirk in that it dosent have any sort of visual feedback on whether flash is enabled or disabled. You sort of have to just remember. Regardless its a simple and very useful tool.
Thats not a quirk, its a screwup, like IE always was and always will be. Nobody with any sense is going to program something good for IE, its so fucked up its a joke! Why try to add gold to a tin mug?
People who know what they are doing and have time will always use Firefox. People with less time will use Opera. Both are superb browsers that make IE look sick.
The alternative is Chrome, but we all know that Google is bent on world domination, so we know that we can’t trust Chrome. It probably feeds back all we do on the net to Googles enormous databases. Will they guarantee it is clean? Nope! Why?
Thanks for the insight on how the third party add-ons work.
Thanks very much. so simple. People going on about downloading third party stuff and all sorts.
Thanks! Flash on linux is a b****h on the cpu.
good to know about linux
Thanks for the info – I love simple solutions.
This is great tip!
you can get that dialog in ff by going to chrome://mozapps/content/extensions/extensions.xul?type=extensions
saves some clicks, but i’m looking for one click solution..
gooooood post
[...] Usage will reduce when Flash is disabled but if you would rather keep it then through Firefox get and an addon called [...]
[...] Usage will reduce when Flash is disabled but if you would rather keep it then through Firefox get and an addon called [...]
nice, I don’t know why it took me so long to find this solution, it’s so simple.
thanks!
@nn, the QuickJava add-on for Firefox offers a one-click solution (for Flash and not just Java, despite the name).
Thank you sir. A fine contribution to the internets.
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in Chrome, type about:plugins in the address bar and hit enter. On the resulting page, find the Flash entry and the disable link below it. Toggle this on and off. For convenience to all your addons, bookmark this and keep on your bookmarks toolbar.
thanks for this!
Very useful info indeed… Thank you Larry, was a breeze to do on Firefox.
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Any idea how to disable flash on Opera tho, if it’s at all possible?
Is there a way to disable only flashes you chose and leave others on?
Like keep a video but disable ads and banners?
Nice simple disable/enable thing.
Got any simple trick like this, to disable/enable playing music or sound in Firefox?
many thanks
I already knew how to disable flash and I found this useful note thru’ google.
I have decided to vote with my feet and I have flash disabled permanently. I have instructed all the people who work for me to disable it too; in the main they dislike it as much as I do.
Our throughput in terms of sheer bytes volume has gone down by 20%.
Overall, in the monthly meeting held by our computer users, everyone was happy not having ads. shoved in their faces for so much time.
Our computer users range from novice to expert and usage ranges from minutes per day to all-day shifts.
Our staff has got used to enabling flash content sites only when they want or need to use them while they are at work. We do not restrict computer usage for personal use nor do we apply any penalty for it.
Many of the users have said they disable flash on their pc’s at home and resent sites which force wasted bandwidth and time on them.
We have removed all flash content from our website and hits have actually gone up!
Once again, thanks for the useful post. More folks should know how to turn flash off.
like josh, I’ve been searching forever for a simple solution. works for me too!
odell´s last [type] ..Maryland Car Insurance
I’m just wondering why one would do this? What are the actual benefits gained by disabling flash?
Thanks for the tip, really helped a lot. I generally ignore flash ads, but then there are others that play sounds at max volume. I absolutely hate those.
Firefox now has a plugin called Flash OnOff that does the same thing without having to open the Add-Ons page. It also changes the color of the flash icon so that you can tell whether it is enabled or not.