[Ryøkan]

I've noticed that more and more web-sites have obnoxious ads that dance and flash bright colors; and they're driven by Macromedia Flash Player. Safari's pop-up blocker doesn't touch them, which, I assume, is why the companies have gone to Flash Player.

At work I use a PC with Firefox, and I can disable these ads with a couple of clicks. Is there a way to do this with Safari?

I tried trashing all my Flash Player folders, but it didn't seem to help - they probably just get automatically re-installed.

Any ideas?

[Randman]

Pithhelmet.

[Millennium]

The FlashBlock extension for FireFox is great, though I've never been able to get the whitelist feature to work properly. This is not a huge problem, since each Flash object is replaced with a play button, but it makes homestarrunner.com kind of annoying to use.

[Mike S.]

OmniWeb allows you to block flash with click to run functionality as well as set-up site specific white lists.

[fisherKing]

what randman said.

[bmedina]

Firefox and the adblock extension.

[OptimusG4]

Also, Camino and the CamiFlash prefpane installed.

[Ryøkan]

Thanks to everyone. Great info. & advice

-- Ryøkan

[CaptainHaddock]

Ryøkan, another solution for Safari is to add a custom style sheet that blocks ads. Unlike Pith Helmet, this will not slow down Safari or break compatibility with Safari upgrades.

The file you should use can be found here, along with instructions for using it (it's really simple):
http://www.beatnikpad.com/archives/2.../08/adblocking

[alphasubzero949]

[brutal]

Originally Posted by CaptainHaddock

Ryøkan, another solution for Safari is to add a custom style sheet that blocks ads. Unlike Pith Helmet, this will not slow down Safari or break compatibility with Safari upgrades.

The file you should use can be found here, along with instructions for using it (it's really simple):
http://www.beatnikpad.com/archives/2.../08/adblocking

You can't block flash-ads in Safari by using custom style sheets.

[fisherKing]

pithhelmet.

[CaptainHaddock]

Originally Posted by brutal

You can't block flash-ads in Safari by using custom style sheets.

No, but custom style sheets block divs and iframes with "ad" in them as well as html elements with common ad dimensions.

I use such a style sheet, and while it doesn't completely eliminate ads like Firefox and Adblock can, it blocks 80% of them, including almost all Flash banner and sidescraper ads.

[Mike S.]

The problem with the stylesheet method is that it's too indiscriminate. I was surfing around with the Camino alpha and finding that images that I wanted to see were MIA, I couldn't figure out why. Then I remembered I had ticked the new CSS ad blocker, turned it off and things worked normally again.

It's like using a sledgehammer for a job that calls for a scalpel.

[schuey100]

I'd love to use pithelmet but it slows Safari down way too much.

[CaptainHaddock]

Originally Posted by Mike S.

The problem with the stylesheet method is that it's too indiscriminate. I was surfing around with the Camino alpha and finding that images that I wanted to see were MIA, I couldn't figure out why. Then I remembered I had ticked the new CSS ad blocker, turned it off and things worked normally again.

It's like using a sledgehammer for a job that calls for a scalpel.

I agree it's imperfect; but it's the best method for Safari if you don't want to use add-on programs.

Omniweb certainly has great ad blocking built in, perhaps the best of any browser. It still isn't quite fast enough for me, but I use it from time to time.

[SSharon]

Originally Posted by schuey100

I'd love to use pithelmet but it slows Safari down way too much.

I've noticed a slowdown on my ibook as well, but the 100% cpu usage for ads drives me nuts. It is well worth the extra second or two to save my battery life. On my desktop I don't use pithhelmet at all.

[fisherKing]

on my 1.33 powerbook, no significant speed hit with pithhelmet enabled (latest version).
well worth it (even the big speed hit on my older powerbook last year was worth it, to block all those stupid ads!)

[Randman]

You can set ad-blocking mode on pith for speed or for safer.

In the latest builds on Safari 2.0, I find it faster than FF w/AdBlock enabled. And the ability to customize rules per site is also a nice touch. There were a few buggy builds out there (I deactivated it about 4 builds ago), but it's been rock solid on Tiger.

[brutal]

I also find Safari faster with Pithhelmet installed. However, I know far more about CSS than Regex, and I have trouble making Pithhelmet do what I want..