FlashBlock

Flash technology has been both a blessing and a curse for Internet users. It's brought us wonderful Web sites like YouTube, but it's also been responsible for annoying, slow-loading advertisements, cumbersome Web site splash pages, and those much-despised autoplaying videos. Fortunately for all of us, there's FlashBlock. This simple Chrome extension lets users control how they interact with Flash elements online.

FlashBlock installs easily and performs its magic with little user input. Once it's installed, anything that's Flash-based--ads, videos, whatever--will be replaced by a circular button with the Flash logo on it. If you decide that you want to view the Flash item, simply click the button, and it will appear and function normally. The extension can be disabled for entire Web sites--a helpful feature for sites like YouTube--and users can optionally hide the placeholder images. FlashBlock blocks not only Flash but Shockwave, Silverlight, and Authorware as well. That's pretty much the extent of FlashBlock's features, but as far as we're concerned, it's enough. We think Flash is great, but when it's misused it can be a serious online irritant. FlashBlock lets you choose how Flash functions in your online environment, and we love having that choice.

FlashBlock is free. It installs and uninstalls without issues. We recommend this extension to all users.