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This is a problem I have in my mind for a long time and now I want to ask Super Users.

I often watch streaming videos on various video sharing sites and Facebook. I click on the "Play" button on the relevant online player, and video starts to load and starts to play after a short while. The problem is, if I don't like the video after watching it for a while, there is no way to stop loading (I can only pause video which doesn't cancel loading). I have only one chance: to reload the page (reloading is not a good option when browsing videos on a long Facebook page because it results in loss of my anchor at the page and takes me to the top of that page). If the video is too long, it exploits all my internet connection and I have to wait for this load process to finish until I can watch another video. I don't want that.

So I'm looking for a solution to force the stream-download to stop whenever I don't want to watch that video. I'm on Windows 7 x64 with Firefox 3.6.10.

EDIT: It seems that YouTube has a feature to do this; but not all video broadcasting services have a "Stop download" option. I'm looking for a global solution which is not only valid for YouTube but also for the others.

wonea
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Mehper C. Palavuzlar
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5 Answers5

3

You could use flashblock, block the objects you don't want to play, or block them by default, click to play, then re-block to stop.

alpha1
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3

Mehper C. Palavuzlar, I've got a real easy fix for you. Just click at the very end of the video timeline. This way the video will stop the previous download and download only a few seconds reaming.

This works with any video streaming site that allows the user to jump at any point in the timeline (probably 99% of the sites).

Lombas
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2

On Youtube, simply right-click the video and click Stop download.

Hello71
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2

If you are using the Aardvark extension for Firefox, you can simply erase the player object from the page, which will stop it from playing. Undoing the erase will start it playing again. There are other extensions, for Firefox and for other browsers, that can do the same.

Other extensions can also block/unblock streaming, like Adblock, NoScript etc.

harrymc
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0

On facebook ( as you pointed ) , you can click on CROSS at right top of the video window, it stops downloading the video.

Ayush Goyal
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