[wplug] Telling webservers you don't have flash installed

[Bill Moran]

Russ Schneider wrote:
> I just downloaded Mozilla Firebird for a spin, and noticed something.  
> Sites that usually give my Macromedia Flash ads on their pages, detected 
> that I didn't yet have Flash installed in Firebird, and replaced them with 
> regular GIF ads.
> 
> Once I installed Flash, back came the Flash ads.
> 
> I HATE Flash ads on web pages.  Is there some way I can fake it so sites 
> can't detect whether I have Flash installed?  How do sites like Yahoo 
> figure it out?  What info is the browser sending?

I'm not sure exactly what info Flash sends, but it's probably in the
HTTP accept headers (HTTP browsers can send a line listing the types
of content they understand, then the web server can make decisions based
on this).

I'm not sure how to tweak Firebird's headers, but if you figure this out,
there will be a downside: ALL sites will think you don't have Flash, and
you may have trouble viewing flash that you want to see.

www.ethereal.com will allow you to see the headers your browser is sending,
but I'm not sure how to teach Firebird to change them.

-- 
Bill Moran
Potential Technologies
http://www.potentialtech.com