Flashmute
This is too good not to be shared with the world:
Flashmute is a small application that resides in the systray on Windows systems, and will disable or enable sound output globally from Flash movies.
I’m also designating the author, Einar Otto Stangvik as tech hero of the month. I hate noise coming from my browser. Die Jamba/Jamster, die!
New: Version 2.0
- Sound is easily muted/unmuted using Ctrl-Alt-M.
- You can now right-click the tray icon to enable/disable the hotkey. In disabled mode, the tray icon will have to be pressed for muting to be toggled.
- FlashMute 2 also has an option to mute a browser totally, so it can silence embedded MIDI and similar annoyances.
- Visit the FlashMute project page to download
Comments
Comment from John Dowdell on 2005-04-25 04:37
“Flashmute doesn’t always seem to replace the npswf32.dll in both browsers’ plugin directories.”
Replace? with what?
I don’t see details of the implementation on the “Projects” page there… have you seen this info in the executable download?
Is it giving a preferred sound source (audio player, eg) absolute control over the system soundmixer, or is it doing something exclusively with the Macromedia Flash Player?
Thanks,
John Dowdell
Macromedia Support
Comment from Arve on 2005-04-25 10:51
John, I tried mailing back to the e-mail address you provided, but it didn’t seem to work: Do you think you could drop me a mail; arve.bersvendsen at gmail.com
Comment from John Dowdell on 2005-04-25 23:51
I use that “supportinfo@macromedia.com” for mandatory fields to advise that I cannot sustainably maintain offlist conversation.
Would it be possible just to say what it actually does…?
tx, jd/mm
Comment from Arve on 2005-04-26 00:01
That’s quite straightforward: This version replaces npswf32.dll and Flash.ocx with patched versions.
I have been in direct contact with the author, and if this absolutely makes Macromedia/Adobe choke, I will pull it, until he can actually release a version that does not alter these files.
I do however, as I wrote in the e-mail I tried to send to the supportinfo address [1], hope that Macromedia can be a bit cool about this; because Flash has become totally unusable for many people since audio ads became popular, and the only alternative to using Flashmute is actually uninstalling Flash.
[1] I didn’t notice that it was a “non-working” address until after I had sent the mail, since I just hit reply in MTs notification e-mail.
Comment from Jarle on 2005-04-26 13:18
You know, I have “known” John for a good number of years, and while I have noticed that e-mails to supportinfo@macromedia.com goes unanswered, I have never known that it was indeed an invalid address left behind to show that he can’t be reached.
John, I would suggest using .invalid at the end of the e-mail so that everyone, easily, can understand its a none working address.
Comment from Arve on 2005-04-26 13:26
Jarle, the address is not actually technically invalid, it just has an autoresponder attached to it.
As for adding .invalid - that is not an option, because IIRC, that will make Movable Type deny the comment.
If people commenting here absolutely doesn’t want to be contacted, I suggest using an example.com e-mail address.
Comment from ghghjd on 2005-08-31 10:24
u should get a nobel prize for this flashmute app
Comment from Graf Koks on 2005-10-13 18:06
Does anyone know if there will be a version of Flash Mute that works with Flash8?
Comment from Einar on 2005-12-09 21:10
I’ve finally gotten around to making a new version. Flash player version does not matter anymore, as theres no patching involved, browser support is way better, and there are also a couple of new features. Check http://www.indev.no for details
Comment from jam on 2006-02-13 14:28
Einar Otto Stangvik is an absolute star. I installed flashmute, and discovered that it didn’t work with mozilla. I emailed him to ask if it could be added to the next update, and he emailed me back within minutes with a registry patch to make it work! Top bloke.
Comment from andreas e on 2006-02-26 22:47
top guy!!!!
finally THOSE DAMN SITES ARE QUIET!! I’m not visually impaired and do not need a “blingggg” or “klonkk” every time I click on some link, so infinite thanks!
Comment from woot on 2006-03-14 05:51
Thank you so much for this product!
I have being playin a flash game all day and I hit level 80 and I needed to stop playing and watch a movie on my computer, but I couldn’t get it to stop playin it’s sh*tty music in the background, and then FlashMute saved the day.
THANKS AGAIN!
Comment from mary on 2006-04-09 01:02
I was excited to see someone came up with a way to silence those annoying sounds, but does it work with Macs?
“Flash has become totally unusable for many people since audio ads became popular.” — I couldn’t agree more. There’s nothing worse than trying to do work, or listen to your music and then all of a sudden having some obnoxious noise forced upon you. I work at home sometimes and these sites wake up my baby, not to mention scare the sh*t out of me, so I’ve resorted to not going to any unfamiliar sites or closing the brower page as soon as I see it’s Flash. I’m developing Flash-fobia!
Comment from Arve on 2006-04-09 04:15
Mary, unfortunately, this application is Windows only. Einar: Do this for Linux and Apple, and you’ll probably receive a Nobel award :-)
Mary: Your best option is probably just installing Opera, and disabling plugins altogether until you need them. Try “F12”
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