How to Disable Flash in IE7, IE8 and Firefox

Adobe Flash Plug-in allows you to view Flash files in a webpage, but sometimes you might want to disable the Flash Plug-in for security reasons. There are plenty of tools out there that can help you to accomplish this task but there are also built in methods that will allow you to disable the Flash Plug-in without having to download and install anything. In this guide I will explain a few ways to disable the Flash Plug-in, for IE and Firefox.

The first method is the easiest to apply and surprise it's for Firefox, they make everything so easy! Basically all you will do is go to the Firefox add-in manager and disable the Adobe Flash add-in and all flash will be disabled. To do this follow these steps:

1 - Open Firefox
2 - Click Tools
4 - Click Add-ons
5 - Click Plug-ins Icon
6 - Click Shockwave Flash
7 - Click Disable Button
8 - Close Window
9 - Refresh page

Now that you have disabled the Flash plug-in you shouldn't be able to view any Flash content on any website. This will be true until you go back in to the Add-ons page and re-enable the Flash plug-in. There are some downloads for Firefox that will also allow you to block Flash, like this one FlashBlock, if you want you can give it a try, it works pretty well.

Now if you are using IE8 there is a built in method as well, it works slightly better than the Firefox method above, because it allows you to add sites to a WhiteList with a simple click so those sites will always show flash content but not others. To block flash in IE8 using the built in WhiteList follow these steps:

1 - Open Internet Explorer
2 - Click Tools
3 - Click Manage Add-ons
4 - Click Show Drop Down and choose (all add-ons)
5 - Double Click Shockwave Flash Object
6 - Click Remove All Sites Button
7 - Close Window

Now you can go to a website that has Flash content (YouTube is a good test site) and you will see an information bar at the top of the window that you can click and add the site to your WhiteList and it will be permitted to display flash content.

1 - Click the Yellow info bar
2 - Click Run add-on
3 - Click Run (when prompted by the security warning)
4 - This adds the site to your WhiteList

Now you will be able to see the flash content on the website you just ran the tool on. You can do this for any site that you trust and only these sites will be able to display flash content. You can also go into the Flash Add-on and add sites manually to the WhiteList.

Now if you are using IE7 there isn't a WhiteList like in IE8, you have to simply disable the Flash add-on much like we did for Firefox. To Disable the Flash add-on in Internet Explorer 7 follow these steps:

1 - Open Internet Explorer
2 - Click Tools
3 - Click Manage Add-ons
4 - Click Enable or Disable Add-ons
5 - Click on Shockwave Flash Object
6 - Click Disable Radio Button
7 - Click OK
8 - Close IE7 and re-open

This should disable the Flash plug-in for all websites; all flash will be disabled for all websites. This isn't as ideal as the IE8 option where you can allow sites to display content, but if for some reason you need to temporarily disable Flash you are able to.

There is also a free tool you can download and install that will allow you to disable flash for sites by just clicking an icon on the toolbar. The tool is called Toggle Flash, it does the same thing as the above post on disabling flash, it's just a point and click method as opposed to having to navigate through the settings to do it manually.