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How do I stop videos from auto-playing?

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Yahoo decided to follow the herd of those annoying advertisements and banner ads, where they now auto-play the news videos when you visit the page. I found no way to stop it. How can I prevent videos on Yahoo News from auto playing?

Yahoo decided to follow the herd of those annoying advertisements and banner ads, where they now auto-play the news videos when you visit the page. I found no way to stop it. How can I prevent videos on Yahoo News from auto playing?

All Replies (4)

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Is this for Firefox Mobile on Android or Firefox Desktop on Windows 7? I will assume desktop.

Firefox plays some video natively (using its HTML5 player) and some using plugins, so this is a two-part answer:

(1) HTML5

Firefox has a setting to ignore "autoplay" when it is hardcoded into an HTML <video> or <audio> tag. However, if the page is using a script to virtually click the play button, then the setting does not apply. See this post for more on that: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/que.../979671#answer-509217.

(2) Plugins

You can change individual plugins, such as Flash, from running automatically to requiring your approval; this is known as click-to-play. You make the switch on the Add-ons page, and then when you encounter Flash on a page, you use the Lego-like icon in the address bar to enable Flash.

To modify your plugin setting, either:

  • Ctrl+Shift+a
  • orange Firefox button (or Tools menu) > Add-ons

In the left column, click Plugins. Change from "Always Activate" to "Ask to Activate".

In addition to this built-in method, there are a variety of add-ons you can use to manage how plugins work.

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Hmm, might have been an important piece of info to put into my original question....

It's Firefox Mobile for Android.

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Actually, to just convert one site from automatically running flash to asking, you can use the Page Info dialog. Call that up from any page on news.yahoo.com using either:

  • right-click and choose View Page Info > Permissions
  • Tools menu > Page Info > Permissions
  • click the globe or padlock icon on the address bar > More Information > Permissions

Next to Adobe Flash, change from Use default to Always Ask. Then when you reload the page, Flash won't start until you approve it from the Lego-like icon.

Screen shots attached for reference.

Endret av jscher2000 - Support Volunteer

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On Firefox for Android, click-to-play is the default for Flash and other plugins. In my case, the Flash player shows click-to-play. If you're not getting that, you might not have Flash and instead you might be viewing HTML5 video. I'm not sure what options you have there.