Dunno if this is OT or not, but the mods can always move it. Every other page I open in this forum is giving me a 'Do you want to install Flash 7?/Always trust content from Macromedia' pop-up. Darned thing is pretty annoying. I have Flash 4 installed (minus about 10 megs of rubbish that comes with it) and I don't want any more, thank you very much. I never use it as it is. Any way to definitively kill this pop-up? And please don't recommend pop-up killers. They're more trouble than they're worth. mac

this is from the new Flash Banners that have been introduced for the ad's.. I think the only way short of turning off flash in your browser to kill the request is to install the new flash :(

Clik OK! the Flash Player 7 is only 400 KB big. :) Eric

I figured it was some crap new flash banner. As someone who loathes flash (I did a lot of flash animations myself - prolly why I hate it), and loathes being pan-handled by advertisers even more, I'm stubbornly refusing to click the damned thing. I didn't know browsers had a flash option. I use IE 6.0. Do you mean the 'play animations' option? mac

Attached Link: http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/

Maclean, you can get the browser /IE-add-on called Avant. (http://www.avantbrowser.com) free browser, which more or less runs on top of IE. It has a BRILLIANT pop-up killer AND a possibility to remove all flash content by the press of a button (and also switch it on just as easy, shoul it be needed) Did I mention FREE? It's also faster than the raw IE.

whoopdat, LOL. Thanks for the info, but I've already tried Mozilla and uninstalled it. Admittedly, it was on an old machine, but IE works fine on it. I use an old 166Mhz for surfing. Best anti-virus ever. I could care less if I get a virus and my main computer is always clean. Anyway, IE opens in about 5 seconds. Mozilla was taking 1 minute+ just to open a blank browser window, so I gave up. Pity... it seemed like a good idea. Mind you, I HATED netscape from the git-go. mac

ernyoka, Thanks. I'm downloading it now. I have to say, I'm highly suspicious, but I'm always suspicious of anything new. LOL. I have virtually nothing on my computer except the programs I need to work. No games, flying things, freebies or other kak. So I'm always a bit leary of adding anything new. But I can always uninstall, so that's OK. I guess I'm weird. My desktop has a grand total of 5 icons on a blank screen and I never use them. I open all apps with ctrl-alt-letter. mac

ernyoka1: the Avant browser advertises the following - "Built-in Google Search Engine: Avant Browser provides a built-in search engine, Google. Built-in search engine enables user to search for web pages, images, groups, directories, news, lyrics and software in Internet." That sounds like that 'data miner' Google toolbar?? Is this correct? Firefox has no such 'built in' 3rd party anything and also has Tab Browsing, pop-up blocking, and as whoopdat pointed out can be scripted to block all off-site images and even told to block all images of certian dimensions (ie; typical banner size) that would even filter out banner coming from the site your at. It dosen't run on top of anything as it's it's own engine so if one wishes they could even remove IE from their system all together. But then again, when Flash is used correctly, I myself enjoy Flash (wich is Not an option is Firefox, it just won't accept it at all) Maclean; the reason you are getting the request to download player 7 when you have ver.4 already installed is that your system is now out of date, like trying to browse the web with IE ver.3 these days. It simply dosen't recognize the new language. If you removed 10meg of something then you must be refering to the full version of Flash and not just the IE plugin wich is only about 400+Kb. If you accept to install the update it is tiny, will not put back any of the stuff you removed as it only applies to the IE 'plug-in'.

Here's the reason I do not allow Google Toolbar on my machine (besides I tried it once on a work computer ran into all kinds of stuff): Info from: http://www.greymagic.com/adv/gm001-mc/ "We found multiple security flaws in the Google toolbar; we will first list them all (sorted by severity) and then supply details. Without any user interaction, an attacker can: * Tap to key presses in the toolbar's search box. * Control all visual configuration options. * Enable features with privacy implications. * Clear the toolbar's history. * Completely uninstall the toolbar. * Hijack the toolbar and reroute searches. * Execute arbitrary programs. * Read local files. * Script in the "My Computer" zone."

Attached Link: http://www.google-watch.org/bigbro.html

I'm suspicious of the Google built-in search too, but I'm running Avant right now, and it seems pretty damn fast. The interface is pretty cluttered and annoying (that's after I've disabled everything in sight) and I can't yet figure out how to re-order my favorites (ie. by dragging them into non-alphabetical order). There doesn't seem to be an option to do that, but it may be hiden somewhere. Ah well, I'll try it for a couple of days and see what it feels like. Without question, it's faster than IE. mac

I wouldn't cancel out Firefox either. It's not the actual Mozilla you mentioned as it's a stand alone browser. I see the new (Firefox) dose require more muscel to run and I just downloaded it myself but haven't installed it yet. But the older "Firebird" is GREAT! Firebird can still be found on the Bottom of the Firefox page (version 7) Firebird 7 has no install, just unzip into a folder and fire it up. It too is much faster then IE as it ignores all the stuff it filters out and has FAR more reliable downloading then IE (I noticed there was mention the new Firefox may have an issue still in this department).

OK. Got rid of Avant browser. It took me all of half an hour to decide I didn't like it. The thing that really ticked me off was the 'donate me money' box that pops up when I open it. I'll stick with klunky old IE. Thanks anyway, ernyoka. mac

I refuse to have the Flash Player on my machine, I lothe and detest Flash!

Attached Link: http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/releases/0.7.html

it is 2004 after all. Time everyone just bit the bullet and used the flash player. It's like boycotting openGL.....just silly.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=12413&Form.ShowMessage=1660094

~lol~ It's always those of us that have been "forced" into making Flash content by clients that hate Flash the most isn't it?

Funny I don't recall seeing ANY Flash banners here.

Thanks PheonixRising, my sediments exactly. Flash isn't going anywhere and it's not about to be used 'less' only more! It's a fact of life on the web, just as sure as more changes will come. The days of old plain black and white HTM are gone. Bobbie Boucher; I'm still trying to figure it all out too. I have never seen one here at Rendo.....?? Gotta agree with Slinger too. Just as I learned to write HTML and a little JS in notepad everyone goes Flash, and I can't aford it. But when it's done correctly and in good taste it sure is sweet! I still like JoeCartoon's stuff and Killfrog too, their so far out there yet so well done. There was a great group called Holiday Force for a while but things broke them up, too bad as I wanted to see the rest of the holiday super heros... :*(

Oh, and an update for those considering Firefox: I'd suggest following the above link to Firebird-7 (not Firefox-8) for I have found several little issues with Ff8, unless you want to help them work out their bugs just stick with the stable version of Fb7 or 7.1 But of course you will have to switch back to IE for those famous Flash sites.....

Hmm I run AdAware at every startup. It has never reported that Google toolbar to be a Data-miner (it does occasionally find other of those though) so I don't know... I guess Avant takes some time to get used to. I like it for the pop-up blocker alone :) and that "donate money" screen only comes once, then you can just tick the "don't annoy me any more" or whatever - tickbox. But That's ok if you don't like it :o) I just know I miss it when I'm at work.

Yeah....I love the new web. Four times the flashy graphics and less than a quarter of the information. Anyone remember Wired Magazine from when it was print? You struggled so hard reading that purple-on-orange type, and marvelled so much at wild and crazy typography, sometimes you hardly noticed it never said anything worth reading. Commited iCab user. Flash optional. Animations optional. Banners optional. Pop-ups optional. Giant gaping security holes....not even optional. I don't have flying toasers on my machine either.

Nomuse; that's because "A picture is worth a 1,000 words", so who needs them anymore?!

There are ways to prevent Flash from being displayed if you really feel strongly about it. http://www.geocities.jp/baryonlee/noflash/ http://www.jtedley.com/ http://www.deftone.com/blogzilla/archives/enabledisable_flash.html http://discuss.fogcreek.com/joelonsoftware/default.asp?cmd=show&ixPost=4745 Serveral options there. I have a Netscape bookmarklet that lets me immediately turn off Flash for the times when I find it particularly irritating. Other than that, I just ignore it. bonni

I would also like to point out that Flash banners are -bad news- for anyone with a seizure condition, and some of the ads seen have been skating awfully close to a strobing rate that =can= trigger the condition (and that is speaking from personal experience, thank you). Renderosity might be wise to place a warning on the front page as to the existance of the Flash banners. It -would- earn them a 'harzardous' rating in the epilepsy community, but the fall out from that would be minimal compared to someone's seizure condition being triggered, and injuries resulting.

Dale, since you are intimately familiar with the seizure problem, I just have to ask: Do you watch TV or is that something you can't do? I am asking because our website at work requires us to use "delicate" annimations because of seizure risk. Never knowing anyone with that kind of problem, I always wanted to ask how they did other common things in life (like watch TV).

And I'd like to ask too: Are animated gifs a potential danger too? I know things like strobe light (or similar effects like driving along a road with sun shining thru trees) can cause it, but I never knew that banners (flash or others) could do so. Do you know the dangerous strobe rate so that we can avoid it?

That's the kicker; there are some 'common' rates that can trigger (15, 30, and 60 cycles her second being the most encountered ones; failing fluorescent lighting, anyone? Or bad neon signs), but 'epilepsy' is very much a blanket term, rather like 'cancer' or 'influenza'. There really are no hard, fast rulesm, and how and where it can manifest is as diverse as the structure of the brain. Well, save one. =Anyone= can have a seizure; the only thing is that most of the populace has a trigger threshhold high enough that they are never bothered with it. Stripped of everything, all you are really talking about is a cascade effect; too much neural activity along certain pathways in too short a time period producing a self sustaining feedback. For the optical, the higher the contrast between flash states, the more potential danger there is. The sun-strobing is such a problem simply because of that contrast. Animated GIF's haven't shown any particular trouble, simply due to the fact that there isn't a great deal of contrast there; things move, they do not tend to strobe. You can =make= them a hazard (like the ads that flash a text message just barely readable at a rapid rate. That can do it). Chuck; I have no trouble with TV. I -do- have to make sure that my monitor and video card are capable of supporting non-interlaced function, though. TV CRT phosphors have a long decay rate compared to monitors; this was done deliberately to prevent the flicker that plagued the first B&W sets (and no, I couldn't have watched one of those). Now, if the -show- has a lot of strobing effects, then I tend to keep a pillow handy to block the light...just in case a hand or closed eyes don't seem to help.

Go to Seimens site www.webwasher.com and download WebWasher Classic (lower right corner of page). It's free for personal use. It's a proxy that sits bewteen your browser and the Internet. You can then prevent pop-ups, scripts, webbots, calls to harvester companies, etc, etc. And you can easily exempt those few sites that need these often-abused features by url. Will work with any browser that you have. It actually extracts the code from the incoming HTML, so in many cases will speed up page loading by skipping all the callbacks to the website's ad sites. For an in-depth look at how to configure it to be even more restrictive as to what it let's in see http://www.pacificnet.net/~bbruce/workshop.htm. Be safe, get a prophylatic - esp. if you use IE!

igohigh, Firebird was the one I tried and it was so slow, I dunped it. Could've been my computer, but IE was fine on it. My computer philosophy is pretty simple. Less crap = less hassle. I have Flash 4 because I occasionally need it to look at animations. I don't like being pan-handled into upgrading by the intrusive method of continual pop-ups. I don't want to see the latest flash animations. If (big IF), I ever do, I'll go download the dratted thing. I don't need Macromedia hustling me every other page. I'm quite able to decide for myself, if and when I want it. But of course, Macromedia's idea is that, if everyone on the planet has Flash installed, people who makes animations will be forced to use it. A bit like Real Player - another particularly nasty piece of work I DON'T have on my computer. Real is one of THE most intrusive pieces of software ever invented. The junk it installs beggars belief. As an aside, in my case, animations are self-defeating. I HATE flashing things that distract me, so when I see one, I automatically scroll it up above the top of the page so I can't see it. If I see a well-executed still image that catches my eye, I'm far more likely to stop and look at it. If it flashes or jumps around, it's history as far as I'm concerned. Thanks to all for the replies and suggestions. I'm back to IE now. Not the best, but at least it's non-distracting and clean. mac PS I just discovered a great trick for Zone Alarm. If you hate the splash screen, try this. Right-click ZA's properties in the start menu (or wherever you have it), and type in the target box (after the path), SPACE-nosplash That's 1 spacebar, plus '-nosplash' My target looks like this. "C:Program FilesZone LabsZoneAlarmzonealarm.exe" -nosplash It works wonders. The splash screen is defunct and ZA opens in about 3 seconds, instead of 30.

Well Mac, I know you live in Italy as me, so you might know the situation here... The web advertising isn't so efficient, very few Italians click on the banners anymore: 90% of the ads are directed to the Anglo/American world, another 8% is directed to German/French people, the last 2% is meant to be seen (and to advert) by other countries...among them is Italy. So, what Italian webmarketers do? A whole bunch of flashing, moving, rolling, jumping stuff, vertically placed, so you MUST see a bit of it wherever you are on the page. And there is nothing more annoying when reading something than a moving image around your field of view...you are forced to watch it even if you don't want to. Next, I (at least I) have some problem with the banner servers: seven times out of ten they don't respond to requests, blocking the visualization of the page until the timeout (do you know they're the very first links called on the page code?), and this timeout is very long, around 10 seconds...worst, sometimes there are two or even three banner calls... My solution? A 2,000 lines long hosts file: when I find a banner server, I put its address on this file with 127.0.0.1 as IP, so when it is called it quickly shows nothing, only a red cross in IExplore and a blank space on Opera...done!!! Even if there's some sites which don't link to external banner servers, I got rid of around 90% of the advertising on the web (100% if you consider only the Italian web).

maclean, I'm with you on the distraction aspect. Another trick with ZoneAlarm is to stop the Z|A logo flickering on/off on its icon. Edit the Registry, go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SOFTWARE > Zone Labs > ZoneAlarm and then set Showlogo REG_DWORD to 0 (zero). Then all you see is the useful red/green meter all the time. BTW, said WebWasher lets you limit GIF animations to 3, 1, or even 0, cycles before it freezes it. lucstef, That's what I used to do before I got WebWasher - use a hosts file. But putting equivalent list in WebWasher (see the second link I gave for how-to) means that you browser doesn't even go near those sites - it can't. So not only do you not see the banners, those sites aren't tracking you either.. And it will display a white space of the right size, or a transparent image or whatever you create.

laying back, Nice trick. That damned logo always bugged me too. I don't suppose you have a fix for the 'confirm shutdown' dialog when I switch ZA off? lucstef, I'm in italy, but I never surf italian sites. Since I'm scottish, all the sites I go to are in english. mac

maclean, You suppose right, plus I leave mine on. But I think that has to be there, in case a trojan succeeds in issuing a shutdown request via an unforeseen means.

I never thought of the trojans. Probably a good idea to have a confirm. I tend to switch off ZA whenever I'm not on the net. Since I'm on dial-up, I physically disconnect (so I have a phone line), and I just don't like have useless things running, especially with weird apps like Poser 5. LOL. mac