turn off auto-video?

Question

Anyway to turn off the automatic video player when you browse the internet.

Reason: When I surf the new, news or info pages, a lot of them now have video that begins as soon as you open it. And, have more than one running at once, down the page further.

We're on Verizon Hotspot ... and video eats bandwidth much faster than web pages ... so, we finally got enough stuff 'shut off' that we don't go over our 5G allowance. Lots of updates etc were running and bumping up the data -- and we don't need most of it. We shut it off for only notify, and we pick when we download upgrades now.

SO, we got back to using only the 5G for a few months, now suddenly it's back up over again. I'm thinking its all the video junk that automatically runs and we personally want just to READ this stuff we search, not watch a video, with some ham-head yakking ...

I'm guessing each one is a small bite, but all adds up over a month.

Running Toshiba Laptop with Wdw7 OS ... and Firefox.

mrwizard · Answer

For fire Fox try Flash Block and "NoScript", This combination stops almost everything for me

1492 · Answer

Also note that websites are embedding HTML5 video in newer browsers, so need another method to stop those from auto-play. You may want to add the Firefox extension Flashblock which reportedly also stops HTML5 based video from auto-playing.

In fact, some websites take marketing videos to another annoying level by not just auto-playing, but disabling controls to stop it? I've discovered it can be done easily as in the example below. Click the video to play.

Now, try stopping the top HTML5 video? Surprisingly, the player controls are actually not disabled, and is identical to the video below it. Yet the top video was placed one-layer below(z-index) on the page. Akin to placing a piece of glass on top of an object or photo. You can see it but not actually touch it, as in the player controls in this instance.

BTW, you can use this example to test whether your browser extensions stops the top video from auto-playing?

dtappy3353 · Answer

would like to know how to turn off the "junk" video toooooo.Have Toshiba Satellite P55 Windows 8 running Avast.Any help would be truly appreciated.Thank you.

monkey44 · Answer

Thanks Wizard, and remember tech-stupid monkey here ... where do I find Flashblock and "no script" ... is that on the Firefox or a download?

And, I do want to read the news stuff, just don't want to run video automatically when I open a page.

Does it make sense to you that these video runs are eating up my bandwidth and adding up over the month to more data than I would otherwise use -- does it add a lot? it seems to me it does, because an hour video (watched a baseball game once - without realizing - and it ate half my bandwidth in that hour). SO, I quit doing that ... I think most folks have home or connected ISP, so it doesn't matter with unlimited, but with us, we don't have home ISP, use hotpsot even those times when we're at the condo.

1492 · Answer

I believe some browsers such as Firefox will incorporate the ability to stop auto-play in future releases, as this is basically a form of a hijack?

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turn off auto-video?

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