i understand the existence of ads on websites. afterall most websites provide information for free and site owners need some form of income to cover their cost.

i'm fine with non-invasive ads. however i can't stand sites displaying annoying flash ads. some examples of bad flash ads:

• some flash ads suddenly occupy the whole screen preventing visitor to use the site normally. even it's for a few seconds, it's distracting.
• some flash ads suddenly appear where the mouse was originally intended to click on a link and to make you 'accidentally' click on the ad and directed to advertiser's website. bad bad bad!
• worst of all, some ads play annoying audio that may even distract those around you (ie very bad for work!)

most flash ads wastes a lot of bandwidth or even computer resources! not everyone have the luxury of unlimited download or having powerful computers.

you can always boycott those sites with annoying flash ads. but if you must visit them, there are firefox addons that you can try.

flash killer

flash killer as the name suggest will kill flash contents. after it's installed locate the icon on the status bar. just click on the icon to disable all flash contents.

the downside with this is, you need to click it everytime you go to the website. ie if a page is reloaded, flash contents will be loaded. you must click the icon to disable the flash.

be warned when using websites that relies heavily on flash. because it blocks all flash contents and you cannot selectively enable certain contents, these flash-based websites will not operate normally. this can easily be fixed by reloading the page.

flashblock

flashblock is another addon that will block flash contents. in contrary to the above addon, all flash contents are automatically disabled when loaded. flash contents are automatically replaced with icons and selected contents can be played when icon is clicked.

there's option to whiltelist websites. for websites that relies heavily on flash and you must use, just add it to the whitelist.

for google chrome

there's flashblock extension for google chrome, functions the same as above.