Flash and Pics Control is an Internet Explorer add-on that allows you to easily enable or disable:

• Flash Animation
• Pictures
• Cookies
• ActiveX
• Java Script
• Java Applets

The program adds a new button to the Internet Explorer toolbar. The button makes it much easier to control what content the browser is allowed to download.

Having Flash and pictures disabled lets you reduce the amount of incoming traffic. Disabling Flash animation (advertising, mostly) will also considerably reduce a web page loading time.

You might also want to disable ActiveX, Cookies, Java Script and Java Applets when visiting web sites you don't trust, since that will make Internet Explorer much less vulnerable.