The Internet is a very dangerous place for Jewish people. There are many Jews who need to use the Internet on a daily basis for legitimate purposes such as school or work. I am in an online graduate program in computer programming and need to be able to use the Internet to access my class material and tools such as Google and whatever websites the search comes up with in my studies. As a computer programmer, I have to use the Internet to help me with my work. The problem is that the web is full of inappropriate material. Even sites that contain “Kosher” content often have inappropriate pictures especially in ads.
I have created the “IETweak” program to allow people to browse the Internet using Internet Explorer with Macromedia Flash Player and pictures disabled. The program allows the user to easily turn the “show pictures” option in Internet Explorer on and off. It also allows “Flash Movies” which is what many websites use for ads nowadays, to be disabled and re-enabled. It makes web browsing a little more difficult because some web pages have pictures that need to be viewed such as navigation buttons. To view these pictures the user simply has to right-click on the pictures one at a time and choose the “show picture” option. Flash and pictures can also be turned back on very easily from an icon in the system tray, but in order for it to take effect the browser has to be restarted. So if you know that a certain page is clean, you can use the tray icon to turn the pictures back on before going into that page.
Possible problems: If someone works on a network in an office that doesn't allow the program to run or doesn’t allow the programs changes to take effect they would have to get the system administrator to allow it. It might be hard to get permission from a non-Jewish company to run such a program.
Obviously, this program allows a user to do whatever he wants so it would not be so useful for parents trying to keep their children from inappropriate material on the Web. However, it is good for someone such as a businessperson or student who needs to use the Web and can trust himself to do the right thing. It is a little complicated and annoying to use at first because you are so used to viewing web pages with pictures, but anyone who uses a computer on a daily basis should be able to get used to it fairly quickly.
If you have any questions or suggestions please email me at