Flash Ads might be closeable
Recently I was screening in someone with a Sponsored+ journal to a community while using a free journal and was served a Flash ad for Dave Chappelle's Block Party. It was, of course, animated with a pair of rotating darker/lighter green sunbursts around the cityscaped figure of what I assume is Dave Chappelle. The animation never stopped and caused Firefox to take up 70% of my processing power (as opposed to the 4-5% it takes up without Flash running.)
However, while I was moving the screen up and down, I could see a box with an "X" with it in the upper right hand corner of the ad. This wasn't readily apparent when the ad first loaded or when the page was at rest. If I hovered my mouse over the upper right hand corner, a pop up with the words "Close" appeared, so I took the risk and clicked.
The Flash ad went away, letting my processor rest and leaving a blank space where the ad used to be!
So, LET YOUR FREE/SPONSORED FRIENDS KNOW that they might be able to shut off Flash ads without clicking through if they use the right upper hand corner! If they pause there and the "Close" pop up comes up, they'll know.
It might not obvious--the "X" only appeared while the screen was scrolling for me in Firefox on Mac OS X.
Hopefully the ads will be tweaked so that the close "X" is readily visible at all times; Flash ads are probably the most obnoxious ads we're going to see on LJ (generally combining the distraction of animation while gratuitously wasting CPU cycles), and it's good to know they can be closed so you can read the page without straining your computer's fans.
If you see one and it bothers you, make sure to give feedback to that effect.
However, while I was moving the screen up and down, I could see a box with an "X" with it in the upper right hand corner of the ad. This wasn't readily apparent when the ad first loaded or when the page was at rest. If I hovered my mouse over the upper right hand corner, a pop up with the words "Close" appeared, so I took the risk and clicked.
The Flash ad went away, letting my processor rest and leaving a blank space where the ad used to be!
So, LET YOUR FREE/SPONSORED FRIENDS KNOW that they might be able to shut off Flash ads without clicking through if they use the right upper hand corner! If they pause there and the "Close" pop up comes up, they'll know.
It might not obvious--the "X" only appeared while the screen was scrolling for me in Firefox on Mac OS X.
Hopefully the ads will be tweaked so that the close "X" is readily visible at all times; Flash ads are probably the most obnoxious ads we're going to see on LJ (generally combining the distraction of animation while gratuitously wasting CPU cycles), and it's good to know they can be closed so you can read the page without straining your computer's fans.
If you see one and it bothers you, make sure to give feedback to that effect.