Flashy Business

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Flashy Business was Originally Posted on July 18, 2005 by

I’m sorry if many of my blogs relate to the internet but for many of us the internet is a part of our lives.

Common world wide is the idea that people selling things have a “right” to advertise how and where they want. They advertise on websites, on the sides of buildings, on busses and benches and even in the air. One memorable advertisement from my youth was the airplanes flying along the New Jersey beaches, pulling a giant banner behind them. Advertised on the banner were such things as bars holding special concerts or special drink prices, or perhaps suntan lotion and so on.

Another advertising medium is the roadside billboard. One memorable set of billboards is the massive numbers along the north/south route from New York to Florida. Who has not seen more than enough of the “Pedro’s” signs for a stopover area located between North and South Carolina on I-95. The signs are like “Pedro says “Only 500 more miles to ‘South of the Border’”. “Pedro says ‘Don’t Miss it’ and then finally, “You missed it, easy turnaround here’.

Here in Hawaii you will notice a complete lack of billboards, building advertising and planes with banners. It is great to be spared those.

However, online I still get lots of ads. The type I particularly hate is Macromedia’s Flash. I don’t see the popups much anymore but it used to be when you went to a site with Flash and you didn’t have Flash, you would be hounded to download it and the popups would continue until you did. Removing Flash was equally as hard and had to follow a very specific removal procedure. Then the popups would start again. I spent countless hours trying to find a specific way to not load Flash and also to not have the browser keep trying to force me to download it.

Another reason I hated Flash is that many of the annoying, flashing and moving ads that distract you, are in fact Flash. Oh I’m sure there are valid reasons to use flash, but when you discoiver that by enabling Flash all your enjoyment of a quiet webpage goes away, you think twice about downloading it.

For those who want to uninstall it, although some browsers may still continue to prompt you to load it… http://www.macromedia.com/cfusion/knowledgebase/index.cfm?id=tn_14157

An interesting thing to notice if you DO have Flash installed… right click on a Flash ad and notice the following items are there “Allow the remote site to access your camera and microphone” without prompting you… Imagine a virus that turns that on so you are not prompted and then someone spies on you, listens to you giving someone your credit card over a nearby telephone… it is just scary.

Anyway, just another rant from me :-)