Installing Flashblock for Camino (suppress Flash ads)

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gregk
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Installing Flashblock for Camino (suppress Flash ads)

Post by gregk »

(Reposting my message originally posted to p.m.camino)

Okay, I finally spent a few minutes installing FlashBlock into Camino and it works fine. It’s absolutely easy.
<ol><li>Quit Camino</li><li>Install the FlashBlock XPI into Mozilla</li><li>Find the FlashBlock.jar, copy it to ~/Library/Application Support/Camino/chrome/</li><li>Open the chrome.rdf from the Mozilla user profile you installed FlashBlock into</li><li>Copy the FlashBlock RDF:Description element to your Camino chrome.rdf</li><li>Change the c:baseURL attribute value to refer to Camino’s chrome directory instead of Mozilla’s. Be sure to encode the space in Application Support, thus Application%20Support</li><li>Copy the FlashBlock CSS rules from Mozilla’s userContent.css to Camino’s.</li></ol>Now launch Camino and visit Shockwave.com and see that all Flash media are replaced by the FlashBlock graphic. Mouse over it and notice it changes to a “Play” button, and that the Flash animation plays only when clicked.

Voila, goodbye Flash ads!
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jbzoller
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Post by jbzoller »

Unfortunately, some of these kinds of things (and I didn't try this specific one) kill all flash-based stuff. Kind of a pain if you want to catch the latest HomeStarRunner cartoon. The modification I have to my userContent.css file right now works great. Blocks the ads, but not the games or cartoons.
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gregk
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Post by gregk »

That’s the nice thing about FlashBlock. It merely suppresses autoplay. You can play any Flash content by clicking on it.
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JB
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Post by JB »

jbzoller wrote:Unfortunately, some of these kinds of things (and I didn't try this specific one) kill all flash-based stuff. Kind of a pain if you want to catch the latest HomeStarRunner cartoon. The modification I have to my userContent.css file right now works great. Blocks the ads, but not the games or cartoons.



Does this work the same as "Pith Helmet" for Safari?
Can you walk me through the installation?
I use Mac (since inception) because MSDOS was a foreign language, so I'm allergic to code. javascript:emoticon('[-(')

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softkid
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Re: Installing Flashblock for Camino (suppress Flash ads)

Post by softkid »

gregk wrote:(Reposting my message originally posted to p.m.camino)

Okay, I finally spent a few minutes installing
[snip]

Voila, goodbye Flash ads!


Never got the mail. You are right the nntp<->mail gateway is broken somehow.

What about adding this very interesting procedure to mozillazine's Camino knowledge base ?
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jbzoller
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Post by jbzoller »

JB wrote:
jbzoller wrote:userContent.css file


Does this work the same as "Pith Helmet" for Safari?


Not quite the same, but about as good.

Can you walk me through the installation?


1. ctrl-click on my the link above for the file and "Download Link Target..."
2. Navigate with the menu to your {user_id}/Library/Application Support/Camino/chrome/ folder.
3. Click "Save."
4. Alternatively, if you already have a userContent.css file in there (i.e., you are asked to overwrite an existing file), then you may just want to download the above file to your desktop and relocate your original before moving this one in to replace it.

HTH,
jbz
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nooon
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Re: Installing Flashblock for Camino (suppress Flash ads)

Post by nooon »

gregk wrote:(Reposting my message originally posted to p.m.camino)

Okay, I finally spent a few minutes installing FlashBlock into Camino and it works fine. It’s absolutely easy.
<ol><li>Quit Camino</li><li>Install the FlashBlock XPI into Mozilla</li><li>Find the FlashBlock.jar, copy it to ~/Library/Application Support/Camino/chrome/</li><li>Open the chrome.rdf from the Mozilla user profile you installed FlashBlock into</li><li>Copy the FlashBlock RDF:Description element to your Camino chrome.rdf</li><li>Change the c:baseURL attribute value to refer to Camino’s chrome directory instead of Mozilla’s. Be sure to encode the space in Application Support, thus Application%20Support</li><li>Copy the FlashBlock CSS rules from Mozilla’s userContent.css to Camino’s.</li></ol>Now launch Camino and visit Shockwave.com and see that all Flash media are replaced by the FlashBlock graphic. Mouse over it and notice it changes to a “Play” button, and that the Flash animation plays only when clicked.

Voila, goodbye Flash ads!


Would this be possible to do with Adblock?

edit: I've tried the procedure with adblock, but it doesn't work :(
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JB
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Post by JB »

jbzoller wrote:
JB wrote:
jbzoller wrote:userContent.css file


Does this work the same as "Pith Helmet" for Safari?


Not quite the same, but about as good.


Well pretty close. Funny thing, I tried opening my Yahoo home page, in both browsers and there was a banner in the Camino window and not in the Safari one. Then I did it again and the Camino one went away, but one appeared in Safari.
I guess they both work equally inconsistently, but well enough.
Thank you kind sir.
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JB
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Post by JB »

JB wrote:
jbzoller wrote:
JB wrote:
jbzoller wrote:userContent.css file


Does this work the same as "Pith Helmet" for Safari?


Not quite the same, but about as good.


Ooops! It seems to have removed the underlines from the links, even though that box is checked in the prefs.
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jbzoller
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Post by jbzoller »

Ya, sorry. That was a little addition that I made. Just take off the last three lines of the file. You can use TextEdit or BBEdit (my preference) to edit the file.

I like the hover-underline effect. :)
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JB
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Post by JB »

jbzoller wrote:Ya, sorry. That was a little addition that I made. Just take off the last three lines of the file. You can use TextEdit or BBEdit (my preference) to edit the file.

I like the hover-underline effect. :)


I'd like to, but I've never used "TextEdit" or "BBEdit."
Take off the last three lines?
These?

a:link { text-decoration: none; ! important }
a:hover { text-decoration: none; ! important }
a:visited { text-decoration: none; ! important }

I can't just delete them. I can copy to "TextEdit" and delete them there, but how to get them back in the file?

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JB
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Post by JB »

JB wrote:a:link { text-decoration: none; ! important }
a:hover { text-decoration: none; ! important }
a:visited { text-decoration: none; ! important }

I can't just delete them. I can copy to "TextEdit" and delete them there, but how to get them back in the file?

JB


Well, i tried. I saved the "Textedit" file as "userContent.css" and trashed the old one. I've got the underlined links back, but so are the banners. ;>(

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nooon
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Post by nooon »

So, what has to be modified in Camino (or adblock) to make the Adblock extension work?
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JB
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Post by JB »

Another question, to be considered in this very interesting thread.
Why does it seem like the effect of the "userContent.css" file is to slow down the loading of the web page, while "Pith Helmet" seems to speed up Safari?
Does "Pith Helmet" actualy stop the download of the banners, while the css file only keeps them from showing?
Watching the new speed of Safari, after I downloaded "Pith Helmet" makes me want the same feature for Camino.
Would a modified for Camino "adblocker" do this trick?

JB
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jbzoller
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Post by jbzoller »

Sorry, JB.

Try re-downloading from the same link above. I modified the file that's there leaving off the last three lines. Overwrite your current copy with this. I hope that does it after a fresh restart of Camino.

Yes, I believe that the file slows Camino down a tad (and that "tad" might be much more noticeable to a modem user, but not for me on DSL), but considering the alternative... I can't stand ads. If I had to surf with ads, I would probably surf a lot less... seriously!
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