Ask HN: How are you avoiding annoying auto-play videos? (Without ad-blocker)

#1

Post by anudeep2011 » Thu, May 10, 2018, 11:06 AM UTC

Increasing websites are auto-playing videos (mostly, news websites). I am against ad-blocker. Also, more often than not, these videos are not ads -- they are just part of the content. So, how are you dealing with it?

As of now, I changed chrome setting to disable sound on all websites. But it's a pain to unmute the tab every time I want to listen to something on a trusted website (youtube, ted, etc)

Re: Ask HN: How are you avoiding annoying auto-play videos? (Without ad-blocker)

#2

Post by detaro » Thu, May 10, 2018, 11:34 AM UTC

Firefox has an anti-autoplay option, and I thought Chrome had too by now?

There's also dedicated anti-autoplay extensions, and you could always use a blocker add-on and not use it with any pre-made adblock lists.

Re: Ask HN: How are you avoiding annoying auto-play videos? (Without ad-blocker)

#3

Post by someearth » Thu, May 10, 2018, 11:39 AM UTC

Any site with forced popups or forced video auto-playing is black listed ... I don't visit it again ever!

Any site says to me to stop my ad-blocker ... also black listed ... I don't need their online garbage ... I am already paying money to access their online crap!

For Youtube channel's home forced video auto-play ... I skip it ... and usually I move directly to the channel's videos listing page bypassing the channel's home page!

I HATE forcing videos or stupid content or large images on users! and I consider it "Online Abuse" and disrespect to the visiting users!

Also not only I use Ad-block ... I use uBlock https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock with "Block media elements larger than" 100KB !!

If anyone knows how to block Youtube Channel's Home video autoplay please tell me how, maybe uMatrix will help https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix ... I didn't try uMatrix, will try it soon!

Re: Ask HN: How are you avoiding annoying auto-play videos? (Without ad-blocker)

#4

Post by t176 » Thu, May 10, 2018, 5:53 PM UTC

For browsing the web I use Chrome with JavaScript disabled. It means I never have to deal with auto-play videos. If there is something I find in Chrome that I want to watch, I drop the url into FireFox and watch it there. I use Firefox for applications and Youtube. Surfing the web with JavaScript disabled is good protection against malware as well as a really good ad-blocker and tracking-stopper. Those websites that only render with JavaScript simply don't get my attention.