We all know what Steve Jobs thinks about Flash, and the steps he’s taken to keep it well away from his mobile devices.
But Flash is a fact of life on the web, and avoiding it on your desktop computer isn’t quite so easy. But not impossible.
If you like to power your way round the web, you’re probably in the habit of opening lots of links as background tabs to read later. If those tabs contain Flash content, things can quickly get annoying. Either stuff starts playing automatically and you can’t find the right tab to stop it, or too much stuff loads and your computer’s fans start whirring as if their lives depended on it.
Assuming Safari is your browser of choice, you should take a look at Click2Flash. It’s a plugin that blocks Flash content, preventing it from loading until you say you want it to load.
The result is a smoother, speedier web browsing session. If you’re using a notebook, your battery will last longer and the fans are less likely to spin up in the first place.
Best of all, it comes with a built-in whitelist feature, so that you can automatically allow Flash to load on those websites where you find it useful.
If you’re not using Safari, try Flashblock for Firefox, or the Web Features preferences tab inside Camino.
(You’re reading the 9th post in our series, 50 Essential Mac Applications: a list of the great Mac apps the team at Cult of Mac value most. Read more.)
