191771 - Add Preference: "Enable Flash"

Status: VERIFIED DUPLICATE of bug 94035

(Core Graveyard :: Plug-ins, enhancement)

Description

[Tovar]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.2.1) Gecko/20021130
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.2.1) Gecko/20021130

Presently, we can control some aspects of what foreign code can be executed on
our machines by enabling JAVAand JavaScript, and what capabilities that code
has.  This is valuable not only on low-end machines, which may not have the
resources to support certain features, but also when the brower or underlying
operating system has bugs that can kill the browser (or worse), or misfeatures
disrupt normal operations.  Some individual or organization also turn these
off for administrative or security concerns.

Bug #94035 covers a related issue, that is, selective blocking of media
types in general.  However, i believe that 'Flash' is more like someone else
running code on my machine and i would like the ability to disable this, in
the same manner i can disable JAVA and JavaScript.  This is orthogonal to
selective blocking.

As we can control what JavaScript can do, and whether such scripts can be
executed in mail and news, there should be at least one option for enabling
'Flash' as well.  That is, options should include "Accept Flash that comes
from originating server only", as we currently do for images.  We may be 
willing to trust the site we go to, but we may not necessarily trust its
partners to behave appropriately.

Selective blocking [Bug #94035] and stopping animations [Bug #70030] appear
to have a number of implementation difficulties.  This feature is needed as
well.  Hopefully it might also migitate some of the problems referenced in
these two bug until clean solutions can be found for selective blocking and
unstoppable animations.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:

Comment 1

[Alfonso Martinez]

please, don't submit new bugs if there are existing ones already covering that
issue.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 94035 ***

Comment 2

[Tovar]

My apologies!  I did a bug query, checked frequently seen bugs, and carefully 
examined those that bugs matched by query, including some of the links.  What
i was a default bug query, which didn't find anything, such as:

   
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?query_format=&short_desc_type=allwordssubstr&short_desc=disable+flash&long_desc_type=substring&long_desc=&bug_file_loc_type=allwordssubstr&bug_file_loc=&status_whiteboard_type=allwordssubstr&status_whiteboard=&keywords_type=allwords&keywords=&bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&emailassigned_to1=1&emailtype1=exact&email1=&emailassigned_to2=1&emailreporter2=1&emailqa_contact2=1&emailtype2=exact&email2=&bugidtype=include&bug_id=&votes=&changedin=&chfieldfrom=&chfieldto=Now&chfieldvalue=&cmdtype=doit&order=Bug+Number&field0-0-0=noop&type0-0-0=noop&value0-0-0=

Including RESOLVED, VERIFIED and CLOSED for 'Status' in the query gets a
plethora of such bugs, which you have every reason to complain about.

   
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?query_format=&short_desc_type=allwordssubstr&short_desc=disable+flash&long_desc_type=substring&long_desc=&bug_file_loc_type=allwordssubstr&bug_file_loc=&status_whiteboard_type=allwordssubstr&status_whiteboard=&keywords_type=allwords&keywords=&bug_status=UNCONFIRMED&bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=VERIFIED&bug_status=CLOSED&emailassigned_to1=1&emailtype1=exact&email1=&emailassigned_to2=1&emailreporter2=1&emailqa_contact2=1&emailtype2=exact&email2=&bugidtype=include&bug_id=&votes=&changedin=&chfieldfrom=&chfieldto=Now&chfieldvalue=&cmdtype=doit&order=Bug+Number&field0-0-0=noop&type0-0-0=noop&value0-0-0=

The query on the "Enter a Bug" page does not seem to check RESOLVED, VERIFIED
and CLOSED either, and perhaps that's part of the problem.  

I understand your frustration, having been on the receiving end of many a 
Bugzilla report in my last job.  Thank you for all of your efforts!


For anyone else who treads here, i verified that a proxy such as Internet 
Junk Buster [http://internet.junkbuster.com/] can be used to suppress Flash
but Mozilla is a better tool for most unwanted images nowadays.

Comment 3

[Justin Kerk]

This is more of a dupe of bug 19118 than 94035, because it would affect all
sites using Flash, not just those individually blocked by the user. See
especially comment 60 on bug 19118.

Comment 4

[Paul Wyskoczka]

v