Sounds like you need Opera. It has tick boxes that you can drag to toolbars for Java, Javascript, plugins and more.

Sadly not a dedicated one for Flash, you have to use the general 'Plugins' button.

I have Javascript disabled by default and simply use site preferences to enable it only for the sites I want it. before that, I used to have to manually switch it on and off all the time, but now I rarely have to think about javascript - Just like a normal user!

It's a kaspersky issue, its also messes with firefox by installing extensions incorrect.
I've had no end of trouble with it and eventually switch AV as the quality of the mozilla extensions is more than lacking, it's terrible.
Not a moz issue.

I just installed and initially loved it. I really like the tabbed email reading. However, I noticed that it was steadily using about 10% of my macbook pro CPU!! what for?! As a laptop user I can't allow my battery to drain like that... so, I'll wait for an update...

When Netscape did the email client it was all I used.

When motsarella got hold of it, it went to crap and I stopped using it.

I've always thought there should be a "Java on / Java off" button

Unbelievably awful.

Install was borked due to my running installation of Kaspersky 2010.

Once I manually disabled all the anti-spam functions I then had to find the files in the thunderbird directory and remove them

Then once I finally DID get it installed, it decided to eat all my new email. It downloaded new email, showed a email as waiting, but the moment you click into the inbox, your mail is gone, never to be seen again.

Useless. Congratulations, Mozilla, you've given me a reason to use Outlook again. What a shoddy product.

Does anyone know the brand name of the polish they used on this turd?

Thunderbird 3 is great.

However, there is still room for improvement.

The e-mails themselves do not scale (zoom in/out) nicely. The content of an e-mail should scale like Opera scales web pages.

When you open an e-mail and delete it, the next e-mail is being displayed. How come? When I delete an e-mail I would like to see the inbox, not some other e-mail that happens to be the next on in the inbox.

I, however will stick with Outlook (also in version 2010 once available) on my W7 system. On my Ubuntu system I'll stick with Thunderbird.

Thunderbird is great, and its for free.
Looking forward for the next version ...

You're right. The fact that KMail and Kontact have had that feature does indeed make it less "useful for overworked emailers".

"Perhaps most useful for overworked emailers is the Attachment Reminder, which works something like a backseat driver, looking for the word 'attachment' in text and reminding you to add the relevant document before you hit send."

...because it's not like KMail and Kontact have had that feature for the past $DEITY knows how long, after all.