by Pete Wright
A quick post and a tip today, and a letter to my friend Tony, a Flash guy.
Dear Tony,
I think about you often when I work on the web. It starts out fondly, and quickly turns to rage when my browser crashes thanks to over-abundance of Flash advertising which destroys my favorite sites. I think of you, Tony, because, since you’re a Flash developer, this experience makes me hate you, just a little bit. That’s why I’m writing to let you know about ClickToFlash.
ClickToFlash is a browser plugin I’ve installed for Safari on the Mac which allows me to prevent you from taking advantage of me, Tony. It’s simple, and smart: load a page with flash without the plug in and see this:
But load a page with ClickToFlash installed and see this:
It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Page loads are nearly instantaneous!
But, I know what you’re saying, Tony. You’re saying, “What about my site — the one that’s all Flash and sweet, sweet sexiness. Can you still see it if you want to?” That’s the beauty of this plugin, Tony. Just click once on any flash box on the page and POW! … the Flash will load in a snap.
My browsing experience has become more smooth, more stable, and more sedate as a result, Tony. The preferences that ship with ClickToFlash allow you to do even smarter blocking than just turning off Flash. In fact, you can turn off Flash cookies, which are dangerous miscarriages of browser justice that do not expire by default, and store more information that you’d normally want in a cookie. I know you’d never use one, Tony, but if you want to learn more about them, read here.
So, I close by reminding you that as a person, when you’re not at a computer, there’s a lot to like about you, Tony. But the fact that you’ve devoted your life to Flash, well, it forces me to strongly recommend Safari users to cut you off by installing ClickToFlash. It’s donationware, and as such, worth exactly what you think it is.
Thanks for reading, man.
Pete