Why does DPReview FORCE Flash upon us???

[Geir Ove]

Hello,

We have been spared for it for a long time. But now, every time I go to the front page, IE 6.0 sits there for about 30 seconds before it finally asks if I want to install Macromedia Flash! And NO, I DON'T WANT THAT. For several reasons:

1) The space it takes up
2) The peformance resources it steals

3) Most importantly: I have had all sorts of conflicts with ohter development tools that I use.
4) This should not be FORCED upon anybody.

I am of course free not to go to this site; is that what it boils down to?

Is there a way to make IE skip this question and ignore plug-ins like this without asking?

Geir Ove

 

[WeirdDave]

Is there a way to make IE skip this question and ignore plug-ins
like this without asking?

You can probably register the mimetypes for flash (and anything else you don't want) toa null plugin that does nothing. That should have the effect you want.

I don't use IE, so I've no idea how one goes about that in practice, but it should be possible.

Dave

 

[Geir Ove]

Thanks,

But the point is, I don't think a site like this should force the flash stuff upon us. At least they should tip us how to bypass it if we find that we want this.

I don't know how to do this in IE.

Geir Ove

Is there a way to make IE skip this question and ignore plug-ins
like this without asking?

You can probably register the mimetypes for flash (and anything
else you don't want) toa null plugin that does nothing. That should
have the effect you want.

I don't use IE, so I've no idea how one goes about that in
practice, but it should be possible.

Dave

 

[Louis Dallara]

Flash is now shipped as part of the MS OS in Xp
you must be running an older OS, or maybe a Mac ?

Flash is the most effiecent way to handle graphics
it requires little over head, it might be a problem
if your running a 33 mhz 486 or a Apple Lisa

But the point is, I don't think a site like this should force the
flash stuff upon us. At least they should tip us how to bypass it
if we find that we want this.

I don't know how to do this in IE.

Geir Ove

Is there a way to make IE skip this question and ignore plug-ins
like this without asking?

You can probably register the mimetypes for flash (and anything
else you don't want) toa null plugin that does nothing. That should
have the effect you want.

I don't use IE, so I've no idea how one goes about that in
practice, but it should be possible.

Dave

--
Lou Dallara
http://www.pbase.com/ldallara
PBase supporter

 

[Dr. Don Sandell]

Point IS someone has to pay for the site. This site if free to the end user (you and I). To support it Phil sells advertising. Economics 101 pure and simple.

 

[brn]

It's really a browser issue, not a DPReview isssue. It is beyond annoying that the browser prompts you to download it EVERY TIME. At work (slow machine), I finally gave up and installed flash.

Now, I occasionally get popups telling me that Java is disabled. It sure as hell is. My work machine is just too slow to be futzing around with Java for some advertisement.

But the point is, I don't think a site like this should force the
flash stuff upon us. At least they should tip us how to bypass it
if we find that we want this.

I don't know how to do this in IE.

Geir Ove

Is there a way to make IE skip this question and ignore plug-ins
like this without asking?

You can probably register the mimetypes for flash (and anything
else you don't want) toa null plugin that does nothing. That should
have the effect you want.

I don't use IE, so I've no idea how one goes about that in
practice, but it should be possible.

Dave

 

[AdamW]

We have been spared for it for a long time. But now, every time I
go to the front page, IE 6.0 sits there for about 30 seconds before
it finally asks if I want to install Macromedia Flash! And NO, I
DON'T WANT THAT. For several reasons:

1) The space it takes up
2) The peformance resources it steals
3) Most importantly: I have had all sorts of conflicts with ohter
development tools that I use.
4) This should not be FORCED upon anybody.

I am of course free not to go to this site; is that what it boils
down to?

Is there a way to make IE skip this question and ignore plug-ins
like this without asking?

Subscribe to its newsletter only, or bookmarking the page for the forums?

 

[paul fortunato]

Flash is now shipped as part of the MS OS in Xp
you must be running an older OS, or maybe a Mac ?

Flash is the most effiecent way to handle graphics
it requires little over head, it might be a problem
if your running a 33 mhz 486 or a Apple Lisa

Amen Louis...amen.
Savin' pennies for the 10D...
http://www.pbase.com/ihs97/

 

[Phil Askey]

Geir,

Flash advertising has been around for almost three years now. Most advertisers want it, we don't encourage them to use it, but if they must they will. We are already very strict about the kind of adverts we have:

We do not allow casino / porn etc.
We do not allow pop-up or pop-under
We do not allow adverts with audio
We do not allow 'eyeblaster' (adverts which float over the screen)

We're a free site, free to you, if we didn't have advertisers we'd last about a month. If you had a clue about bandwidth and how much it costs you really wouldn't complain.

BTW. I think there's something wrong with your machine because on every machine I've used (mac or windows) having embedded flash has very little impact on page loading once you have the plugin installed (which is automatic on the first visit).

Hello,

We have been spared for it for a long time. But now, every time I
go to the front page, IE 6.0 sits there for about 30 seconds before
it finally asks if I want to install Macromedia Flash! And NO, I
DON'T WANT THAT. For several reasons:

1) The space it takes up
2) The peformance resources it steals
3) Most importantly: I have had all sorts of conflicts with ohter
development tools that I use.
4) This should not be FORCED upon anybody.

I am of course free not to go to this site; is that what it boils
down to?

Is there a way to make IE skip this question and ignore plug-ins
like this without asking?

Geir Ove

--
Phil Askey
Editor / Owner, dpreview.com

 

[seeingisbelieving]

I like the choice of restrictions to advertisers! So many sites have those ads I have to chase about to close, or distract me. And those sites say "were free, so we have to allow it". Guess what, dpreview has proven that to be not so true.

Flash advertising has been around for almost three years now. Most
advertisers want it, we don't encourage them to use it, but if they
must they will. We are already very strict about the kind of
adverts we have:

We do not allow casino / porn etc.
We do not allow pop-up or pop-under
We do not allow adverts with audio
We do not allow 'eyeblaster' (adverts which float over the screen)

We're a free site, free to you, if we didn't have advertisers we'd
last about a month. If you had a clue about bandwidth and how much
it costs you really wouldn't complain.

BTW. I think there's something wrong with your machine because on
every machine I've used (mac or windows) having embedded flash has
very little impact on page loading once you have the plugin
installed (which is automatic on the first visit).

Hello,

We have been spared for it for a long time. But now, every time I
go to the front page, IE 6.0 sits there for about 30 seconds before
it finally asks if I want to install Macromedia Flash! And NO, I
DON'T WANT THAT. For several reasons:

1) The space it takes up
2) The peformance resources it steals
3) Most importantly: I have had all sorts of conflicts with ohter
development tools that I use.
4) This should not be FORCED upon anybody.

I am of course free not to go to this site; is that what it boils
down to?

Is there a way to make IE skip this question and ignore plug-ins
like this without asking?

Geir Ove

--
Phil Askey
Editor / Owner, dpreview.com

 

[Geir Ove]

Hello,

That's a rather up-nose statement: How much software development do you do?

I, and othres I work with, have encountered various problems. They may be solved now, but none of us want to use 14 days to set up a complete development platform wilt Dev. tools, databases, drivers etc. just to test if flash now is without problems. OK?

Geir Ove

Flash advertising has been around for almost three years now. Most
advertisers want it, we don't encourage them to use it, but if they
must they will. We are already very strict about the kind of
adverts we have:

We do not allow casino / porn etc.
We do not allow pop-up or pop-under
We do not allow adverts with audio
We do not allow 'eyeblaster' (adverts which float over the screen)

We're a free site, free to you, if we didn't have advertisers we'd
last about a month. If you had a clue about bandwidth and how much
it costs you really wouldn't complain.

BTW. I think there's something wrong with your machine because on
every machine I've used (mac or windows) having embedded flash has
very little impact on page loading once you have the plugin
installed (which is automatic on the first visit).

Hello,

We have been spared for it for a long time. But now, every time I
go to the front page, IE 6.0 sits there for about 30 seconds before
it finally asks if I want to install Macromedia Flash! And NO, I
DON'T WANT THAT. For several reasons:

1) The space it takes up
2) The peformance resources it steals
3) Most importantly: I have had all sorts of conflicts with ohter
development tools that I use.
4) This should not be FORCED upon anybody.

I am of course free not to go to this site; is that what it boils
down to?

Is there a way to make IE skip this question and ignore plug-ins
like this without asking?

Geir Ove

--
Phil Askey
Editor / Owner, dpreview.com

 

[Mark Tomlinson]

I would sugest your fighting a loosing battle on this one adverts are here and there going to get worse, just like TV, perhaps you have considered installing a filter proxy server, to block Flash file I had one and it worked very well and it was free!

Advertisers pay to advertise because a site is popular, strange that the more adverts a site places the less popular it becomes remember Yahoo, reminds me of parking lots and paradise.

The point made about the running costs is a so true, and the advertising on here is IMHO as unabtrusive as it gets, while still trying to catch my eye.

 

[Brandon Mizar]

Maybe they can setup a pay site that is free of banners all together. Good for Phil and good for those who do not want banners. I think that would only be about 4 people would want that though. There is always one in every crowd though that hates something about your site. I would say contact Microsoft if you want this fixed. Its not Phils problem. He gives a killer site to discuss a great hobby for free so I would just say deal with it or go elsewhere.

I would sugest your fighting a loosing battle on this one adverts
are here and there going to get worse, just like TV, perhaps you
have considered installing a filter proxy server, to block Flash
file I had one and it worked very well and it was free!
Advertisers pay to advertise because a site is popular, strange
that the more adverts a site places the less popular it becomes
remember Yahoo, reminds me of parking lots and paradise.
The point made about the running costs is a so true, and the
advertising on here is IMHO as unabtrusive as it gets, while still
trying to catch my eye.

 

[GodSpeaks]

To eliminate, or at least minimize, those pesky ads, not to mention popup/unders, java, etc, etc, etc... Try using an ad blocker. I use AdSubtract, in conjunction with ZoneAlarm. I see very few ads and no popups at all. I have had hassle free surfing for years now.

Flash is in a category of it's own though. Too slow, too cumbersome and just way too intrusive. In addition, it has been reported that viruses can be embedded into flash. While I very much doubt any flash advertizer will be infected with a virus, what about all those other sites you go to that use flash. Way too risky, if you ask me. I just have it turned off and won't allow it on my computers.

You can also modify your hosts file to bypass the adservers.

Declan

 

[Barry L]

By you...not Phil. As you said, "You are free not to visit the site."

Most of us are very happy to have this free site by Phil and a little flash by advertisers in not a hardship to put up with. Computing power to handle flash without degrading performance is cheap enough these days. If you can't afford to upgrade the least you can do is not complain about a free resource. Very rude and up-nose of you.

That's a rather up-nose statement: How much software development do
you do?

I, and othres I work with, have encountered various problems. They
may be solved now, but none of us want to use 14 days to set up a
complete development platform wilt Dev. tools, databases, drivers
etc. just to test if flash now is without problems. OK?

Geir Ove

Flash advertising has been around for almost three years now. Most
advertisers want it, we don't encourage them to use it, but if they
must they will. We are already very strict about the kind of
adverts we have:

We do not allow casino / porn etc.
We do not allow pop-up or pop-under
We do not allow adverts with audio
We do not allow 'eyeblaster' (adverts which float over the screen)

We're a free site, free to you, if we didn't have advertisers we'd
last about a month. If you had a clue about bandwidth and how much
it costs you really wouldn't complain.

BTW. I think there's something wrong with your machine because on
every machine I've used (mac or windows) having embedded flash has
very little impact on page loading once you have the plugin
installed (which is automatic on the first visit).

Hello,

We have been spared for it for a long time. But now, every time I
go to the front page, IE 6.0 sits there for about 30 seconds before
it finally asks if I want to install Macromedia Flash! And NO, I
DON'T WANT THAT. For several reasons:

1) The space it takes up
2) The peformance resources it steals
3) Most importantly: I have had all sorts of conflicts with ohter
development tools that I use.
4) This should not be FORCED upon anybody.

I am of course free not to go to this site; is that what it boils
down to?

Is there a way to make IE skip this question and ignore plug-ins
like this without asking?

Geir Ove

--
Phil Askey
Editor / Owner, dpreview.com

 

[kiwi]

... unnecessary thread onto the readers of the News Discussion forum? There are more appropriate places for it ...
Mike

Hello,

We have been spared for it for a long time. But now, every time I
go to the front page, IE 6.0 sits there for about 30 seconds before
it finally asks if I want to install Macromedia Flash! And NO, I
DON'T WANT THAT. For several reasons:

1) The space it takes up
2) The peformance resources it steals
3) Most importantly: I have had all sorts of conflicts with ohter
development tools that I use.
4) This should not be FORCED upon anybody.

I am of course free not to go to this site; is that what it boils
down to?

Is there a way to make IE skip this question and ignore plug-ins
like this without asking?

Geir Ove

 

[Richard Smith41318]

A lot of sites are giving in to the pressure and using ad techniques
that forcibly interrupt the "browsing experience" of the site. Phil
is being quite conservative about adverts and you are not being
fair-minded in your criticism.

It all comes down to this: TANSTAAFL.

 

[Phil Askey]

I wrote every single line of code on this site, from the C++ ISAPI routines to the ASP code, stored procedures, database design.

Geir, I'm not being 'up-nose', I'm pointing out that flash advertising is not unique and has been around for a long time, if we turn away advertising because we won't accept flash then we won't last long...

That's a rather up-nose statement: How much software development do
you do?

 

[Ed Leys20479]

Geir,

It's clear many people here don't understand what is at the heart of your issue. Perhaps you, yourself, do not have a full understanding of it.

Here is what is happening...

If you have an IE browser and the flash plug-in is not installed, when a flash advert is detected, the full plug-in will be downloaded as a "favor" to you by IE and then it will ask, through a pop-up, if you want the plug-ininstalled. There is no known way to turn off this activity in IE. If you say that you do not want flash installed, the next time a flash adfertisment is detected, it will be downloaded once more, and at the end of the download, you will once again get a popup asking if you want it installed.

The flash plug-in download takes a while (especially on dial-up) and is a significant detrement to the browsing experience. It's IE that is doing this wonderful stuff for you and, naturally, it does not allow you any way to turn this off. Even if you put the flash source site on you "distrusted" list (or whatever the list is called) it will still be downloaded and you will be asked once again, time after time after time after ...

And there is little if any alternative, since Phil's site is coded specifically for IE, and other browsers (he considers all other browsers "damaged" and will do little if anything to let them work properly) are typically crippled when it comes to even some common site features. (Typically, forum posting and forum photograph browsing are quite hampered with non-IE browsers.)

However, there is a solution for you. It should not take you too long to recognize when the flash plug-in is once again being downloaded. When you detect that, use the IE "Stop" button (which will stop the loading of the page and everything on it). Wait a few seconds, then use the IE "Refresh" button. This will reload the page, but since the adverts are usually changed for each page load, there is an excellent chance the page will reload without a "flash" advertisement and will come up quite quickly.

Give it a try, this is not a perfect solution, but you might be happy with it.

My best regards,

Ed

--
http://www.blackmallard.com/cal_ls/
California Light and Structure

 

[Mark Tomlinson]

I don't use IE much, except where I have to, mostly ASP crippled sites. I use opera and it works fine, no problems with forums here.

Geir,

It's clear many people here don't understand what is at the heart
of your issue. Perhaps you, yourself, do not have a full
understanding of it.

Here is what is happening...

If you have an IE browser and the flash plug-in is not installed,
when a flash advert is detected, the full plug-in will be
downloaded as a "favor" to you by IE and then it will ask, through
a pop-up, if you want the plug-ininstalled. There is no known way
to turn off this activity in IE. If you say that you do not want
flash installed, the next time a flash adfertisment is detected, it
will be downloaded once more, and at the end of the download, you
will once again get a popup asking if you want it installed.

The flash plug-in download takes a while (especially on dial-up)
and is a significant detrement to the browsing experience. It's IE
that is doing this wonderful stuff for you and, naturally, it does
not allow you any way to turn this off. Even if you put the flash
source site on you "distrusted" list (or whatever the list is
called) it will still be downloaded and you will be asked once
again, time after time after time after ...

And there is little if any alternative, since Phil's site is coded
specifically for IE, and other browsers (he considers all other
browsers "damaged" and will do little if anything to let them work
properly) are typically crippled when it comes to even some common
site features. (Typically, forum posting and forum photograph
browsing are quite hampered with non-IE browsers.)

However, there is a solution for you. It should not take you too
long to recognize when the flash plug-in is once again being
downloaded. When you detect that, use the IE "Stop" button (which
will stop the loading of the page and everything on it). Wait a
few seconds, then use the IE "Refresh" button. This will reload
the page, but since the adverts are usually changed for each page
load, there is an excellent chance the page will reload without a
"flash" advertisement and will come up quite quickly.

Give it a try, this is not a perfect solution, but you might be
happy with it.

My best regards,

Ed

--
http://www.blackmallard.com/cal_ls/
California Light and Structure