How to Stop Autoplay Videos When Browsing

It can be terrible annoying to deal with videos that start automatically on a webpage that you’ve just opened.

As is common knowledge, most of these videos are run using Shockwave Flash, so it’s only fair to focus on this technology and which will solve the problem adequately when you give it permission to work.

Of course, given that there are a number of browsers, let’s look at how one can resolve this problem for the three biggest ones.

For Chrome, you have to click on the menu icon in the upper-right corner and select Settings. Now scroll down the bottom of the page and click the Advanced Settings. Now, look for the Privacy section and click the Content Settings button. In the dialog box that opens, scroll to the Plugs-in section and select “Click to Play”.

For Firefox, press Ctrl+L and type the local URL about:addons in the address bar. Select Plugins located second from the bottom in the left pane. Look for Shockwave Flash in the plugins list. Now, select “Ask to Activate” in the pop-up menu instead of “Always Activate”.

Finally, for Internet Explorer, select Tools>Manage add-ons from the menus at the top of the window. Now, select Toolbars and Extensions in the left pane and wait for the list of plugins to appear. Look for Shockwave Flash Object on the right (usually located at the top) and click Disable. Also, in the More Information dialog box, click the Remove all Sites button and close the box.

Whether it is a gray box or a white one with the Adobe Flash’s logo, videos will only work if you click on the box.