Blocking Flash from automatically loading

Flash ads don't have the best reputation. Even people not necessarily opposed to ads on the site dislike Flash ads, for several reasons:


 * If you don't have Flash installed, it's probably going to prompt you to install Flash over and over and over again.
 * Many Flash ads are badly programmed and suck up CPU cycles, or are bandwidth intensive.
 * Flash ads tend to have lots of animation and other annoying effects not present in static banners or text ads. For instance, LiveJournal allowed the movie campaign for "Employee of the Month" to use a rollover ad.  While the rollover was labeled on the ad, rollovers are a very passive method of activating an ad as opposed to clicking; they can be done on accident a lot more easily.

A Flash ad was responsible for malware on the LiveJournal site.

Other people don't want embedded videos from YouTube and other media sites automatically loading on their friends page.

=Options for Mozilla Firefox=

Flashblock is the big granddaddy of Flash blockers. All Flash objects are blocked from downloading and replaced with a transparent box with a play button on it. Clicking the play button will download and execute the Flash. This method is very flexible, allowing you to play the Flash media you want and ignore the rest. You can whitelist specific sites. (For instance, if you wanted to watch YouTube or Home Star Runner without clicking the play button every single time.)

=Options for Safari=

SafariBlock and PithHelmet include Flash blocking as part of their features. SafariBlock is freeware and the more powerful PithHelmet is $10.

=Options for Internet Explorer=

AvantBrowser is an IE derivative that claims to have Flash blocking.

=Options for Opera=

This page discussions blocking Flash in Opera. However, I don't know whether the techniques prevent the Flash from executing or only hide it until clicked, so use your discretion.