by Roger Jenkins

Created on: July 05, 2010

Occasionally, you may find that you want to disable Flash in Firefox, such as when you are browsing the Internet and run across a site that displays large flash-based advertisements over the web page. If so, then this article will show you how to take control of your browsing experience, by explaining how to disable the underlying plugin that allows Flash content to be display. In the steps below I will detail how to disable the Adobe Flash Player in your Firefox browser. 

The Adobe Flash Player is labeled within Firefox as 'Shockwave Flash', and can be found under the Plugins configuration area of the Add-ons tool window. The step-by-step instructions to disable the plugin are:

1) open your Firefox Browser

2) select 'Tools' from the browser menu

3) from the resulting drop-down menu, select Add-ons

4) a dialog window labeled 'Add-ons' will open that contains 4 icons in the upper left corner:

1. Get Add-ons

2. Extensions

3. Themes

4. Plugins

5) select the 'Plugins' icon

6) you will be presented with a list of installed plugins, scroll until you see 'Shockwave Flash'

7) click on the icon next to the Shockwave Flash item, a 'Disable' button will appear on the right side of the listing

8) click the Disable button, the icon should now appear grayed out, and the button will now be labeled 'Enable'

9) close the Add-ons dialog window

You can now browse without activating the Adobe Flash Player.

Eventually, such as when you realize that disabling the Player also disables your favorite Flash-based game, you will decide that you want to enable the Flash Player again, just follow the same steps and look for the 'Enable'  button in step 7), as follows:

1) open your Firefox Browser

2) select 'Tools' from the browser menu

3) from the resulting drop-down menu, select Add-ons

4) a dialog window labeled 'Add-ons' will open that contains 4 icons in the upper left corner:

1. Get Add-ons

2. Extensions

3. Themes

4. Plugins

5) select the 'Plugins' icon

6) you will be presented with a list of installed plugins, scroll until you see 'Shockwave Flash'

7) click on the grayed out icon next to the Shockwave Flash item, a 'Enable' button will appear on the right side of the listing

8) click the Enable button, the icon should now appear normal, and the button will now be labeled 'Disable'

9) close the Add-ons dialog window

You will now have an operational Adobe Flash Player again.

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