A couple of months ago, reports began showing up in my mailbox (and on the codenut.info support forums) that various antivirus and antispam engines flag FlashMute as Adware. About simultaneously, I also saw a couple of reports of people who never installed FlashMute, but nevertheless found it on their system, and were unable to remove it. I think it's about time I make a statement about both separate issues now.

First of all, they are separate issues. My (I'll get to why I say "my" in a second) FlashMute has never been, and will never be, anything even remotely similar to Adware. For starters, I despise such software as much as the next guy, and find it highly immoral to impose anything other than what's stated in the software description, on anyone's computer. There's simply no way I'd ever include any such feature in my software. Any antivirus/antispam lab actually analyzing FlashMute would come to the same conclusion. Feel free to put me to the test on that :-)

That brings me to the second point. FlashMute has never been flagged specifically. However, the technique FlashMute uses to hook into the browser, and mute its sound, has. FlashMute will essentially attach itself to your browser, and intercept all waveform sent to any other plugins (such as quicktime, flash, silverlight, and so forth). It therefore comes as bit of a surprise to me to see that it has taken this long for the technique to raise any eyebrows at all. So while the antivirus / antispam engines are absolutely right that FlashMute uses the same entry as actual Adware probably would / could, it doesn't do the same thing. I suppose you could compare it to walking through the front door when you visit a friend's house. The difference between you, and a thief, at that point, is that you probably notified your friend first, and made no attempt to hide your entry. A thief (or adware, if you will) wouldn't be as polite, nor would he be likely to make his entry quite that apparent. Furthermore, a thief would be there to steal, whereas you're just there to tell your friend to turn down his noisy stereo (yeah, you're *that* kind of friend).

Lastly, and this is why I said "my FlashMute" earlier; someone seems to be abusing my software to distribute actual adware / spyware / malware. Someone reported at my support forum that they'd never download nor install FlashMute, that it could not be found in the add/remove programs control panel applet, and that when deleted it would re-appear. Fairly typical malware behavior. This is *not* the official version of FlashMute, which can be downloaded here, at download.com, softpedia and other sites: it's a copycat. I haven't been able to get my hands on the malware version yet, so I don't know if it's actually got any functionality in common with the real FlashMute (it may or may not, judging from the reports), but I'd be grateful if someone who's seen it could send me a notice. It goes without saying that it's fairly disturbing to have someone use your name to publish or spread something like that.

In closing: I never made any adware / malware / spyware, and I never will. If your antivirus complains about FlashMute, it's because it attaches to the browser to do the muting, not because it's FlashMute. Don't be mad at me, and don't be mad at the antivirus software. If you find yourself seeing flashmute.exe in your process list, but haven't downloaded or installed it yourself, turn to this post at the support forum for guidance on how to remove it. But before doing so, please email me the .exe file, so I can review it.

For any other questions, feel free to drop me a mail, or leave a post at the support forums (http://codenut.info). Thanks!

With little new on that front for some time, there's now a possible solution for the trouble some users have had starting IE with FlashMute enabled. Head over to the new forums, and read the post there: codenut.info's FlashMute forum.

I've typed up a couple of Sidebar Gadgets for Windows Vista; both of which you are free to poke around with. One is a Volume Control, and the other is a quick launch variation resembling my now-left-for-dead Quixecute project (see the projects page).

The Gadgets can be found in the Gadget Gallery.

It's closing in on a year since my last update to this site, so I suppose I should add a few lines for those who may come by and thought me dead. My previous entry was about a blog I started last year, and that's where I've been spending some of my time. In addition to that, I've written a few articles for CodeGuru.com and CodeProject.com, been trying to maintain a few libraries (more details on those at my blog), and contributing on Microsofts MSDN forums (where I'm also a moderator).

At the moment, I'm contemplating whether or not to publish more updates for the FlashMute application, or finally complete some of the other applications I've had in the pipeline for ever so long. FlashMute has had a fair share of downloads the last few years (about 2-3000 per month), but as I see it, it's pretty much going to be obsolete when Vista takes over. For it to even have the right of life, it's either got to do what Vista will be doing *smarter*, or provide more features. I'm not really one for keeping applications alive just for the sake of keeping them alive, so adding features only is probably out of the question. Making it easier to use, smaller, better, faster and all that, however -- tempting. If you've got any thoughts, be sure to give me a tell. I'd appreciate it :)

I've just cracked open a new blog. It will largely be focused on my development, and also be the outlet for some code related articles I plan to write. Check it out.

While the work to complete some of the larger applications, like SwitchPut and Rewire, presists, I've added another tool to the projects-section. PortMapper enables you to pipe incoming connections to local ports through to other local or remote ports. Future versions will have a remoting interface enabled, so programmers can take advantage of the mapping mechanisms without using the gui.

See the projects page for more information.

This site is being redesigned and rebuilt as we speak. After a year of the brown, a fresh tint is due. Along with this will be the release of SwitchPUT (current name, might change), which is long overdue. I first announced the release of this program in January 2006, but it has been pushed back some months, due to a complete refurbish of an internal beta which has circulated for some time. More to come on this as the completion near.

Many thanks to Eric Stewart, Bill Klingenburg and Marty Mapes, for making donations to this site. I make no money off it, so all donations are put into hosting bills (FlashMute actually has a lot of downloads, who would have guessed). Once again, thanks for contributing, guys :)

Updates are also coming along soon. I'm spending time, whenever possible, making finishing touches to a new FlashMute version, as well as Switchput. I won't be making any estimates for a release date yet, as I've done that (and been horribly wrong) before. Check back later :)

Thanks to Jon (jon8282 at the forums), I was warned of a bug where FlashMute would not block all sound played through DirectSound (e.g. "<bgsound>" mp3's). I've now added a quick fix to do mute these. Be sure to turn the "Mute whole browser" setting ON, and it should work like a charm.

So you know, this will now block most embedded and otherwise included sounds on a webpage, included streams played through those mini Windows Media Players. To switch off the blocking of these sounds, you have to unmute FlashMute, and reload the web page. After adding this I somewhat realize that the program needs some new options to block/unblock specific windows... Oh well. As if I'm not busy enough as it is :)

Another minor update. Addresses two problems. One bug where the volume slider window might appear outside of the screen boundaries, and another "bug" where the user did not have the required system dll's, and could not use it. See the FlashMute page.

I haven't posted anything here for quite some time now, as I've been busy with work. I've had time to continue on some of my projects, though, so there will be some updates at some point. Several new FlashMute features have been requested, and I'm implementing them as they get to my inbox. A collective update will be released soon.

Also; I've been playing around with Flash8, and its new bitmap containers. This is the result. Still a beta, but it's getting there. What will it be used for, you ask? Oh, I've got a plan or two in mind.

Check it out. 2.06 with a new, MSN Messenger-related feature! See the FlashMute page.

Ok, I did say I wouldn't comment on any more updates here on the front page, but now I am. The thing is, I got a question at the forums about adding a volume slider. This has now been implemented, and should allow you to steplessly adjust the volume of sounds produced by Flash movies. Single click the FlashMute icon and ajust away. Build number bumped to 2.04. Yay!

Also, I changed the tray icon, since the previous one could have gotten me neck chopped by Macromedia. To compensate for the new not-as-pretty icon, I updated the about box for your viewing pleasure. Yay^2!

Update: 2.04 had a bug which messed up Flash-only adjusting of sound. This has now been corrected, and the build has been bumped once again -- 2.05 is the new one.

I've just got a forum site up and running, for any comments/questions you might have. It's located http://forums.indev.no, and you're welcome to go there at any moment to comment/ask/rant away.

A minor bug in the midi muting has now been fixed, and the newest build is with that 2.02. Subsequent changes and updates will be commented on this page.

I've finally gotten around to finish FlashMute 2. This time completely independent of Flash Player version, bug fixed and with a couple of new features. The latter two are described in the linked page, so please read that carefully.

Link: FlashMute 2.0.

A couple of important notes; If you've been using an older version of FlashMute, you must uninstall this one before installing the new version. It's also wise to visit this page (Macromedia: Get Flash Player) and install the latest Flash Player.

It has recently come to my attention that the FlashMute utility I made a while back has become somewhat popular. This urges me to come up with a new version, especially now that Flash 8 has been released, and the old FlashMute will no longer work as intended.

The last few months have gone by all too quickly, and I haven't found time to do or implement all the things I should have. I am, however, on it now, and will be releasing a new FlashMute in the near future. Until then, thanks for your patience.

Not too exiting, but I'll mention it here either way; 3D-Giraffe. I made this to test a minimal 3D engine I wrote in Flash. Somewhat confirms that Flash isn't the fastest technology for realtime rendered graphics, though.