So it seems these days that every web page has an annoying flash player advertisement which led me to boycott everything macromedia. I uninstalled the flash player from IE6 thinking it would solve my issue. Now instead of an ad popping up I keep getting the "do you want to install flash player" window popping up. I have tried messing with the settings in IE6 but can't find the one that disables the "install plug-in" dialog. Someone please point me in the right direction.

On a side note do any of the pop-up ad blockers completely block flash player ads?

On a side note do any of the pop-up ad blockers completely block flash player ads?

I haven't seen one of those ads since installing AdShield, so maybe it does. Not sure, though. I can still play proper flash movies such as the StrongBad Email. Since AdShield goes by a URL substring table (for example, blocking any URL that contains the string "/ads/"), perhaps it also does this for any flash files fitting that description. Maybe that's why it works for me. Give AdShield a shot. I can even supply you with a predefined block list if you want it.

Find the place where IE controls "helper applications" or "mime-types" and just create a dummy entry for it.

I suppose we'll have to add "pop-up flash" blocking to Mozilla now..

Another annoyning thing, when that ActiveX dialog pops up, it's not asking to download Flash again. It's instead, taken upon its self to download Flash for you, and is asking permission to install it. So, IE is wasting more of your bandwith because you uninstalled Flash.

/me hops on the soap box

You could also try switching browsers to then be able to use other ad blocking methods (each word here is a different link). The first method dosen't work in IE since it dosen't support user stylesheets. The second method dosen't work due to IE not following proxy pac file rules properly. And the third, well, I haven't personally seen an IE ActiveX extension that offers similar integration.

More and more people are switching all the time. empeg.comms.net has been seeing a percent rise every month recently in Mozilla based browsers (currently at 15.5%), as well as other sites on this server covering a range of subjects. Overall average looks to be around 12% now, so I would say Mozilla based browsers are ready for prime time.

Showing people here at work has converted many people as well. The advantages of IE no longer are greater then its disadvantages compaired to others. And that's not even including the many third party extensions.

/me steps back down

15% is incredibly high and I'm sure that's due to the type of people on this board. I'd be very interested in knowing where your 12% figure came from. That still seems pretty high to me.

Last I checked, IE was over 90%, but statistics are always misleading.

The 12% was a quick guess based on empeg.comms.net, riocar.org (had lower numbers due to more general traffic, not as much repeat), unrealty.net, and carbon6.com. I have stats running now on all the sites on this box, will let you know what they show tomorrow.