Flashblock is a popular Firefox extension written by Lorenzo Colitti and Philip Chee that, you guessed it, blocks all Flash elements from loading in Firefox.
Flash's speed and now near universal compatibility with computers and browsers make it a godsend for dynamic, animation and effects heavy websites. Unfortunately, it can also swallow RAM and CPU like a blue whale swimming in krill.
I use this a lot on my woefully underpowered laptop* and it works just like you'd expect it to. You can create a whitelist of sites that you allow to load Flash.
However, I have to admit that I otherwise keep this extension disabled (but installed) in my main computer, unless I specifically need to block Flash files, which is, as an animator and web designer, not very often. I wish Flashblock also had a blacklist option, that only blocked Flash from certain sites.
*My laptop was bought in late 2003 on eBay. I got it used for 200 dollars. It's a Compaq Armada with a 400mhz Pentium III, 256 megabytes of RAM (32 mb VRAM shared), and 9 gigs of hard drive space. It has just one USB 1.1 port. Its screen hinge is broken so it flops backwards all to easily. But it still runs Windows XP, and I must say it's faster than many peoples' main computers, since I keep it so clean. I only use it for screenwriting, reading books in bed, and internet stuff when I'm travelling. Its battery is only now starting to get annoyingly short-lived, but it won't be until that runs out or my screen falls off that I will replace it, with another 200 dollar used iteration.
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Slow computer? Block Flash in Firefox and Browse faster with Flashblock
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Here is some of the great techniques which will help you to browse faster with IE and Firefox
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