Flash applets can be fun, but most often they distract you from the real content. That's the case with most Flash ads that include sound and animations.
The Macromedia Flash Player is implemented as an ActiveX control for some browsers, and as a plug-in for other browsers. If you don't want to see Flash applets anymore, uninstall Flash Player (macromedia.com).
If you don't want to uninstall Flash, but you want to be disabled as default, you can try Flashblock, an extension for Firefox that blocks ALL Flash content from loading. It then leaves placeholders on the webpage that allow you to click to download and then view the Flash content.
If you want to block just some Flash applets, you can install Adblock, another Firefox extension that filters unwanted content based on the source-address using regular expressions. You can disable, for example, anything that contains "/ads/" in its address.
In Opera, if you want to temporarily disable Flash, it's an easy workaround: just disable plugins (press F12, and uncheck "Enable plugins").
Otherwise, to simulate AdBlock, you should create a file user.css that contains this code (credit - http://my.opera.com/Rijk/blog/show.dml/8382):
embed[type="application/x-shockwave-flash"] {
content: url(http://img467.imageshack.us/img467/9899/flashblock2tp.gif);
}
embed[type="application/x-shockwave-flash"].zichtbaar {content: normal; outline: none}
body:before {
position: absolute; visibility: hidden;
background-image: url("javascript:window.addEventListener('click', function(){var srcElem=window.event.srcElement;var tag=srcElem.tagName;if(tag=='EMBED') srcElem.className='zichtbaar';}, false)");
content:""}
The file should be copied in the same location that appears in Preferences/Advanced/Content/ Style options / My style sheet.
