Websites with sounds, music, whatever, piss me right off. That's why I never design any like that, and websites that bear the legend "requires Flash" make my heart sink...

DK

It's a shame you are using Internet Explorer. If you used Firefox (as well) you could install the adblock extension. It only takes a couple of sessions and intelligent placement of wildcard filters to virtually eradicate adverts from any site.
Incompatability is not as bad as it was.

Firefox's Adblock is an absolute Godsend for those smiley banner adverts, and I do agree that a special little corner of Satan's derriere must indeed be reserved for the Flash developer who decided that people would like sound as well as animation in their advertisements.

I just happen to hate Firefox

Don't use Internet Explorer?

Not that I am advocating lynx, but it doesn't suffer from that. Or graphics. meh.

Firefox and that popup suppressor would do it. And it does. For me. How can you survive without tabbed browsing? Or does IE do that these days? Regardless, I can't run IE anyhow.

Firefox and that popup suppressor would do it

...it is a banner, not a pop-up... and tabbed browsing is exactly the feature I most dislike about Firefox. I actually like lots of Windows open.

> I just happen to hate Firefox

Perry,

www.admuncher.com, it's the best of breed on windows and well worth the entrance fee IMHO.

Greg

With IE open, click Tools, go to Options. Click the Advanced tab, scroll down to Multimedia and uncheck Play sounds in web pages and Play animations in web pages aslo Play videos in web pages. click OK.

Won't work for every site but will help a bit.

In IE, try: Tools->Internet Options->Advanced

Scroll down to Multimedia and play with the check boxes for "Play Animations...", "Play Sounds..." "Play Videos..." and see if that works.

I dunno if that will work, I usually have sound muted for the entire PC unless I want tp play music or watch something I know has sound. It is easier than tracking down all the sound settings for the various system beeps and such.

Oh, and the new IE is rumoured to have tabbed browsing. Firefox lets you select whether to use tabs or not in its options. I now use IE only for sites that require it, like MS support sites.

Perry,

You are absolutely 100% correct. These people should be hung drawn and quartered.

I found a site with exactly the stuff on it I was looking for. Alas I had to close it down immediately. It had a Flash on it of a insect and with the tag-line "zap the bug and win a laptop!". And it had buzzing in the background. Arrghh!

I'm not going to even get into the Firefox vs IE debate. Not after a previous Mac vs PC thread degenerated into a battle.

Personally I'm a Firefox man. Oddly enough Perry it's the tabbed browsing I like. I guess that's why we have consumer choice.

I must apoligize for my immediately previous post.

I forgot this is a libertarian site where one is supposed to expound on ones own opinion and how it relates to individual property rights as professed by Friedrich Hayek, and then go off on a tangent relating it to V.D. Hansons writings on the Pelloponesian War.

Answering the acutal question asked was very rude of me. I am sorry.

I use (at home) this little tool.

NoAds Hosts(Link)

Can cause warnings from AV software and the suchlike as it rewrites your Hosts file to block access to the Ads.
Uninstalls very clean (which is always a big worry) should you find the large blanks (Where the Ads should be) distracting.

Feeling alright, Tom?

Joe Blow... many thanks! I installed admuncher and the offending banners have indeed been... munched! I can feel my blood pressure falling already and I have put the axe back in the garden shed.

I've been using IE7 beta for the past 3 months and it's pretty good, tabbed browsing and a whole lot of other stuff too, and seems to solve these sort of issues too. Power hungry though. Can also recommend the improvements to the whole of the office suite I'm enjoying in Office 2007 Beta too, esp. Outlook, Word and Excel.

I suggest turning off all the sounds and having your computer work IN SILENCE.

Like they used to in the good old days.

I suggest turning off all the sounds and having your computer work IN SILENCE. Like they used to in the good old days.

Surely you jest? I play music whenever I am using my computer. I just don't like companies forcing sounds on me that I did not ask for.

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned Opera yet. You can have either tabbed browsing, or each page open in its own window on the Windows toolbar. There's also site-specific preferences in version 9 to turn off the sound if you don't want to turn it off globally, and a built-in content blocker.

Advertising is free speech. They banned once it in some countries didn't they?

As for Firefox, I've stopped using it because it has twice decided to lose all my bookmarks.

Advertising is free speech

True but irrelevent. I was not calling for advertising to be banned by law, I was looking for a way to make it ineffective via technical means.

Editor's note: Deleted, irradiated, axed, junked, expunged, die spammer die!!!!

Perry, you could try adding some 'bookmarklets' to your links bar. In Firefox, IE, Safari and Camino I have 'zap images' and 'zap plugins' from this site. It usually works to remove all advertising (especially Flash - which is what the audio ones will be) from a page. I find flickering and flashing advert infuriatingly distracting and tend to click those bookmarklets regularly.

I find it to be a better solution than to permanently alter my browser settings - as a web developer I need to make sure than what I see is closest to the 'default' as possible.

(Looks like your anti-spambot thingie isn't working too well either.)

As for Firefox, I've stopped using it because it has twice decided to lose all my bookmarks.

That happened to me once too. I got Opera, and it's perfect.

Aversion to tabbed browsing is weird.

I'm surprised no one mentioned FlashMute.

It works with IE and Firefox and intercepts the sounds at the DirectSound layer in Windows to prevent them from being heard.

Its original purpose was to mute Flash, since Flash is the medium used by the worst noise offenders. However, it can also be used to mute the entire browser, which is how I use it. It has a handy hotkey (CTRL+ALT+M) which toggles sound on and off, so if there's something you actually *want* to hear, you can do so.

Long ago in Flash you used to have the ability in the player to control playback, repetition, and volume. They removed that, and my cynical side tells me it was because people who make ads (and annoying websites) didn't like the user having any control. I submitted a feedback to Macromedia asking for volume controls, but (not surprisingly) I've been ignored completely (other than the acknowledgement that they received it).

Not to get too far into the browser wars, but like you, Perry, I despise tabbed browsing. Unlike you, though, I use Firefox almost exclusively (to the point where I have a User Agent spoofing plugin to get around silly IE checks). Shift-Clicking a link will cause Firefox to open the link in a new window, and there's an option available that allows you to choose whether a window opened from another application starts in a tab or a new window.

(Unless, of course, you're using IE on a Mac, in which case I can't help you. :-) )

If you don't like tabbed browsing in Firefox turn it off!

(Tools/options/advanced in 1.0.7)

D'ya mind if I ask why you don't like tabbed browsing?

OT: Sorry to hear about Richard Hammond's Prang. Hope it isn't as bad as it sounds.

http://www.itv.com/news/index_a4641381341a94ee199e755c262630e5.html

D'ya mind if I ask why you don't like tabbed browsing?

That is like asking why I do not like yellow ties or eating fish... I just don't. It just does not suit the way I naturally prefer to organise my browsing. I like to have a zillion windows open (I have a 23" screen running at 1920x1200, so space is not a major problem).

I'd just like to toss in some support to Ted's suggestion; give Opera a try. Although I prefer Firefox (the availability of various extensions is a must-have for me), Opera is definitely right up there with it in terms of quality. It also has some adblock functionality, just nothing quite as good as the Firefox extensions. Opera also has tabbed browsing (just like Firefox or IE7) and although I never got really comfortable with them, a lot of people swear by the mouse gestures.

Perry,
I think it must just be personal preference. Cause I've got 2x21" screens and I like tabs. I also do not like yellow ties (they remind me of Charles Kennedy amongst other things). I do like fish though. I think this might have been one of the most tediously pointless posts I have ever made ;-) Anywhere.

I'd best raise my game. OK, not promising much with this but here we go.

Opera fans,

Sell a Firefoxer Opera! Does the free version still carry advertising? I tried Opera a while back (almost certainly an iteration or two ago) and found the interface just two much, rather like later Netscape. I like the clean interface of Firefox and I like the download manager.

And I vowed not to get into a browser debate...

PS. Just to throw this into the fray... My Trackpoint / Scrollpoint combo is set for Unix-type "windowing" - you switch windows just by rolling over the title bar, no need to click. How do folks feel about that set up? I'm curious because some people hate it.

Music? On your computer! Pshaw! That's what the iPod is for. :)

Music? On your computer! Pshaw! That's what the iPod is for. :)

iPod? Feh! Creative Zen :-)

But computer-with-powerful-speakers is what I really like.

Try Opera. I use it over Firefox since the magnifier works much better (I need my pages a bit bigger than most people).

If you right click you have the option of opening in a new page, window or more importantly in a backgroud page (the middle mouse button does this also).

So if you are perusing a list of things your want to read (such as aggrator sites like digg, slashdot, or Drudge) you middle click on all of the links you want to open and have it open them all in the background. Saves a ton of time since you'll be reading the first one while all the others are loading.

Opera also will open up where it left off so if you have a bunch of unread open pages you can shut it down and not lose any time trying to remember what you had open. You can also save sessions (like all the blogs you read on a daily bases). Go to all of the sites and have them open as pages. Save the session giving it a name of your choice. Come back later and open the session and load all of the pages at once. Or do the same thing using bookmarks with the "Open all folder options" menu item.

And Opera having only about 1% of the browser market (if that) is pretty immune to virii.

Nick:

Opera (for the desktop) is free of charge, no ads whatsoever.

And the default interface is a matter of some debate in the Opera discussion groups. How do they make it easy enough for IE/Firefox users to start using it out of the box, without hiding the great Opera features such that new users will have trouble finding them; and how do they show off the Opera features without bewildering users like my mother who would practically have a conniption fit if things didn't work the way she's used to.

Thanks Ted. I'll look at the forums. Hadn't thought of forums. D'oh!

...you switch windows just by rolling over the title bar, no need to click...How do folks feel about that set up?

Excellent stuff.
A good window manager should also allow a smaller window to sit above a larger one whilst the larger one receives the focus. Enlightenment set to "sloppy focus" does the job nicely.

Creative zen gets my vote too, had one a year now, built like a tank and I can sit on it and not break it.

Love firefox and the addons, you can open in new windows too you know.Loved opera but hated the adverts...too mean to buy it....might do though.

You'll find a LOT of these smiley things come from a very few domains. Block ad.doubleclick.net by amending your hosts file and many of them go away. A few more (which you'll soon discover) and eventually you hardly see any ads at all.

Bliss.

And of course, you shouldn't be using IE for all sorts of reasons other than popups etc.

I just thought I'd chip in with a very good reason to be using Firefox that I think may sway Mr de Havilland:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torpark

Of course, you can run Tor separately, but while out and about a portable torified browser would seem to answer of problem of usable anonymity.

Opera no longer has advertisements. It's interface now is probably the cleanest, most clutter-free interface of 'em all. The tabbed browsing and right-click facility makes it a pleasure to use. It has a useful inbuilt download manager and I find it much easier to configure the security/site settings in Opera than Ffox or IE.
In short, Opera rocks.
Another way to kill ads -- Privoxy. Free and it works.

So Firefox users, how do I back up my bookmarks? I would really hate to lose them.

Midwesterner:

Go to:

bookmarks/manage bookmarks/file

And there you will find import... and export...

Or, you could try

http://mozbackup.jasnapaka.com/

which is a backup tool for firefox & thunderbird

Hope that helps!

For those, unlike Perry, who use Firefox, I recommend Flashblock. This replaces every Flash object with a button you can press to start that particular flash object. Result: easily avoid the annoyance of the most irritating ads, while still remaining in control (for the odd idiot-site that uses Flash for its navigation). More reliable than Adblock because it doesn't rely on guessing the source or name of an advert object.

I just thought I'd chip in with a very good reason to be using Firefox that I think may sway Mr de Havilland:

Interesting... I will check Torpark out as that is a very attractive feature. Enough to overcome my aversion to Firefox's look and feel? We'll see.

Nick,

Doh! It never occured to me to try "export" for backing up. I'd searched "help" for "backup" and come up with nil.

I bookmarked that link since I have similar concerns about Thunderbird info not going away. I will probably try it out when I have some time to play.

Thanks much.

Perry, is this an okay thread to ask other browser/OS aversion/conversion questions?

i use this

http://everythingisnt.com/hosts.html

its very effective, regularly updated and it doesnt matter what browser you are using. it kills most adverts dead.

Sure... I am experimenting with Firefox myself now and I must say it is much improved since my last outing with it. Perhaps I might stop using the Devil's Browser after all :-)

"But computer-with-powerful-speakers is what I really like."

I keep a Behringer mixer on my (physical) desktop through which I run audio inputs at all times for output to Acoustic Research Active Parters. One guitar mix is always present (line-out from a small Marshall amplifier or a Behringer V-Amp processor) because all recording goes to hard-disk these days instead of tape. The mixer also gets line-out from the TV tuner card in the computer: satellite TV in a window on my Win2K desktop. The AR's will shake this room if I let them, which I do, sometimes.

No question about it: audio is integral to my computing, now.

Now & then I hit a website pushing audio at me. It always disappears as fast as I can hit the upper-right corner on the display with a mouse.

I bloody hate those people.

I have to back Malcolm.

Flashblock is a must-have for Firefox. It is almost exclusively Flash ads that are annoying. I don't use Adblock because it filters all ads. Unintrusive, well targeted ads can be useful. I also like to keep them as a courtesy to providers of good content.

Thanks, Perry.

Here's a Linux question for anyone with an opinion. I rather messed up my laptop a couple of months ago, pulled out the harddrive and now access it with a 'new' computer to pick off what I need, (and can get).

For the old computer, a Touchbook CF-48 with a PIII 1000MHz with 261K ram, I bought two new harddrives, 20g each and want to set up a dedicated Linux system on one of them. I can do the setup either from Win2K or a blank (still in the wrapper) disk.

When I went looking for Linux, I was overwhelmed with choices. I've heard Linux is getting tolerant if not yet friendly. Does anybody have advice for a non-geek on how to go about this? Do's and dont's? I don't even know what questions I should be asking yet but I have to start somewhere.

Midwesterner,

Linux is certainly worth a punt. I was going to set-up dual boot with XP on my desktop... Until I realised that fecking around with two OSs would probably mean me doing nothing much but being my own tech suppor! But that's because I love to tinker.

New Linux distributions come thick and fast and I'm a bit out of the loop at the mo. If you're a non geek I suggest you go for something with the easiest installation - historically the major achilles heel for the uninitiated. There's plenty of places on the web with reviews of the latest distros although I've done a very quick Google and I was bewildered at the range since the last time I looked into it about 6mths ago. Whenever I've looked into it SuSE seemed the one I'd go for and the reviews suggested it was pretty easy to install. RedHat also seems to get high marks as well.

One word of warning though. The impression I have always got from my dealings with Linux/Unix is that you get much more benefit from if you're a programmer or similar than if you're basically just a user. In the later case I don't really see any advantage over XP other than cost. Except one. The machine you describe will not come close to running Vista and XP is rather long in the tooth so a modern Linux distro might be a good upgrade.

"bewildered at the range" yep. That about some it up. I'll wait and see how this plays out on the thread, and unless someone really suggest something else, I'll see if I can get to know Susie, err... SuSE. (Okay that song's way old. You're excused if you didn't get the allusion.)

Back in the days when "core" had literal meaning and a (very) few computers still had tubes (valves?), I was a bored operator watching a serial computer running sorts and reports so I taught myself programming by looking at compiles and machine dumps, (the better to pull pranks on my boss). He got his revenge by making me a programmer analyst and for several years I lead a team that designed, programmed and installed mostly inventory and customer support software.

There's nothing major riding on this so I would like to have some fun with linux and start learning to do more geeky stuff.

For geeky stuff, real geeky stuff, linux is the choice for a new generation.

Or was that Pepsi years back.

Regarding Firefox and tabs: there's no reason you can't open a separate window for each link you follow. Right-click on a link and select "open link in new window".

Regarding the Adblock extension: it's fantastic, but it doesn't block *everything* (at least not out of the box). Adblock only blocks what you tell it to, accomplished by either right-clicking on offending content and selecting "Adblock image...", or by handcrafting your own filters (regular expressions).

For those looking to dip their toes into Linux, try one of the LiveCDs. Knoppix is the one I am familiar with and is apparently the most popular at the moment. No actual installation required and comes with goodies such as openoffice ready to go.

Rich