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By Applelinks Senior Editor John H. Farr
Someone, somewhere, once upon a time, was nearly overcome with joy at how Flash animations would be the salvation of the online advertising business, because the low-bandwidth format would permit all kinds of sensory assaults on Web surfers. I hope that person can be found and duct-taped in front of a big monitor for a full week of Web surfing, just to see how far we've sunk.
About a year ago I finally downloaded the Flash plug-in for Mozilla in order to view an animation at a friend's Web site. Unfortuately, I left it in place, so for most of the last 12 months, I've been subjected to all manner of grotesqueries in the name of commerce.Of course, I'm lazy. That, and clumping along through the rat's nest of Mozilla preferences exhausted my patence. (Ask any Internet editor: lack of patience is an occupational hazard, or would be if this were a viable occupation.) Finally last night I remembered that all I had to do to suppress all the flashy-washy stuff was find the plug-in and get rid of it. The trouble with that was that Mozilla has folders all over the place, so I had to use Sherlock to find the right one.
Ah, bliss.
But this got me thinking about browsers. Software engineers, a scurvy crew if ever there was one, seem to love burying the most-used preference choices as deeply as they can within an application, especially browsers. If it were up to me, my Mozilla toolbar would have some different buttons: one to clear the cache; one to turn off ads; one to prevent the browser from accessing CNN, MSNBC, and all the rest:; and one to send nasty emails to the FBI. Build me such an app and I will beat a pathway to your door, then demand that you give it to me for free, of course.
Anyway, the stupid Flash animations have all quieted down now. Life is good, or at least a little better than it was.
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