Being a great open source/Linux freak, I love the Firefox browser – its flexibility and ease of customisation are really appealing.
When browsing I like content presented simply too. Except when looking especially for it, I really dislike having Flash animations strobing and morphing before my eyes, particularly if they’re trying to sell me something, which they usually are if you happen to use web-based mail sites such as Yahoo!
Flashblock in action on Yahoo!
Now I’ve discovered an answer to this intrusive eye candy – the Flashblock Firefox extension, which enables one to disable all Flash animations, but leaving a button so you can view any that you actually want to see. My heartfelt thanks go out to its developers, Lorenzo Colitti and Philip Chee: splendid work, chaps!
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) has recently unveiled gNewSense, a new Linux distribution that is reported to be free of the proprietary software that’s contained in most Linux distros. Based on Ubuntu and Debian, gNewSense offers users “the stability of Ubuntu with the addition of freedom,” according to developers Brian Brazil and Paul O’Malley.