Getting rid of flash; some useful info for anyone who wants to do so.

[Chris J...]

I've long been irritated by the pop-up box in IE that keeps asking to
install Macromedia Flash. I think it's utterly pathetic that there is
no "don not ask again" box that can be checked.

I tried disabling all active-x controls, and was rewarded with a
different window notifying me that I'd turned off active-x, and the
page might not display correctly. This box also had no way I can see
to stop it recurring.

Finally, I found a method that works most of the time, and decided to
post it here in case there are other people who want it.

First, download and use the flash uninstaller from
[url]http://www.macromedia.com/support/flash/downloads.html[/url]
you will have to scroll down to find it.

This uninstaller works (for me) better than manual uninstalls,
especially as it removes all version of flash, including the one
microsoft packages with IE.

Then edit your hosts file, and add the following lines at the bottom
(the text wraps here, but each line should begin with 0.0.0.0)

0.0.0.0 download.macromedia.com activex.microsoft.com
active.macromedia.com
0.0.0.0 macromedia.com

This stops about 90% of those annoying "do you want to install flash"
boxes from displaying. If anyone has any ideas on how to stop the
remaining 10%, I'd be delighted to see how.

[Jeckyl]

BTW: Why don't you want flash player on your system .. what is wrong with
the flash animations playing?
--
All the best,
Jeckyl

[Chris J...]

On Fri, 18 Mar 2005 01:07:47 GMT, "Jeckyl" <Jeckyl@Hyde.com> wrote:

>BTW: Why don't you want flash player on your system .. what is wrong with
>the flash animations playing?

Most of the flash animations I encounter are adds, and I find moving
adds to be very distracting and annoying (I also turn off animations
in my browser for this reason).

If it wasn't for the adds, I'd have and use Flash, as I've seen some
nIce things done with it.

[Garp]

"Chris J..." <chris@noadresss.com> wrote in message
news:8ick31pdti1itluhh3hsk8tqcg05nvtppp@4ax.com...

> On Fri, 18 Mar 2005 01:07:47 GMT, "Jeckyl" <Jeckyl@Hyde.com> wrote:
>

> >BTW: Why don't you want flash player on your system .. what is wrong with
> >the flash animations playing?

>
> Most of the flash animations I encounter are adds, and I find moving
> adds to be very distracting and annoying (I also turn off animations
> in my browser for this reason).
>
> If it wasn't for the adds, I'd have and use Flash, as I've seen some
> nIce things done with it.
>
>

Firefox with Flashblock extension = problem solved.

Garp

[timberfish]

On 2005-03-17 16:28:25 -0800, Chris J... <chris@noadresss.com> said:

>
> I've long been irritated by the pop-up box in IE that keeps asking to
> install Macromedia Flash. I think it's utterly pathetic that there is
> no "don not ask again" box that can be checked.
> I tried disabling all active-x controls, and was rewarded with a
> different window notifying me that I'd turned off active-x, and the
> page might not display correctly. This box also had no way I can see
> to stop it recurring.

If it's the IE notification that's annoying you then why not make
things easy on yourself and install the latest Flash player? Then you
won't ever be prompted to install it. This is more of an issue with
how IE handles new activex install requests and is not isolated to
Flash by any means.

Not really sure what the purpose of removing Flash is though. Do you
have one or do you just want to cause you do?
--
timberfish

[timberfish]

On 2005-03-17 17:46:23 -0800, Chris J... <chris@noadresss.com> said:

> On Fri, 18 Mar 2005 01:07:47 GMT, "Jeckyl" <Jeckyl@Hyde.com> wrote:
>

>> BTW: Why don't you want flash player on your system .. what is wrong
>> with the flash animations playing?

>
> Most of the flash animations I encounter are adds, and I find moving
> adds to be very distracting and annoying (I also turn off animations
> in my browser for this reason).
> If it wasn't for the adds, I'd have and use Flash, as I've seen some
> nIce things done with it.

Didn't see this post when I asked about why in my previous post. Okay,
I guess that makes sense but why don't you just install an ad-blocker
which will prevent any ads inline or otherwise from showing in IE?
Problem solved and you can still view Flash only sites (of which the
number is growing).

Just an idea and you get the best of both worlds.
--
timberfish

[Jeckyl]

>> >BTW: Why don't you want flash player on your system .. what is wrong

>> >with
>> >the flash animations playing?

>>
>> Most of the flash animations I encounter are adds, and I find moving
>> adds to be very distracting and annoying (I also turn off animations
>> in my browser for this reason).

Then use popup ad blockers. Or is it banner ads etc within a page that you
find distracting?