The bad thing about Flash video was that it required a third-party plugin to play the content. The good thing was I could select which content to play; using the click-to-play feature in Firefox and Chrome.
But now that HTML5 video is getting popular, I see a lot of ads popping into view again. They are not only a distraction, they hog resources on my computer and make the fans spin full speed.
Is there a way to disable HTML5 audio/video content by default, and enable it only selectively?
In Firefox you can set media.autoplay.enabled to false in about:config though as of now this may not be sufficient for every case. An extension like NoScript (default settings) could be used to complement the missing functionality or even otherwise used by itself without the about:config setting. In NoScript it's also possible to extend the functionality to whitelisted sites (NoScript Options > Whitelist) via NoScript Options > Embeddings: Apply these restrictions ...
For Chrome, I am satisfied with Stop HTML5 Video Autoplay. Does not prevent loading but good enough to prevent media from auto playing.
https://superuser.com/a/406044/105108
This post helped me to disable ogv video.
Setting media.ogg.enabled to false in about:config worked for me.
For Firefox, you can use the Toggle HTML5 Video extension to disable HTML5 video. Worked for me.
According to its docs, it works by changing the following about:config settings:
media.ffmpeg.enabledmedia.ffvpx.enabledmedia.ogg.enabledmedia.mp4.enabledmedia.apple.mp4.enabledmedia.webm.enabled
According to a blogpost, to disable HTML5 and autoplay of videos in Mozilla Firefox is to force them to use Flash version.
Type about:config in the Mozilla URL field, make a new boolean with type media.html5video.blocked and give it value of true.
Nothing worked for me.. tried everything but html5 still sneaked in.
Ultimately.. installed opera 28, installed extension "Disable Youtube™ HTML5 Player" and it's good now.
hope this helps.
As of Firefox 69, you can now configure Firefox' settings to block all or specific websites from autoplaying videos.
To always allow or disallow autoplay for all videos or media with sound:
and choose Options.
Autoplay → Settings. Default for all websites: Block audio is the default setting. Set this to Block Audio and Video to block videos too. Or set this to Allow Audio and Video and you can configure blocking autoplay on a per-site setting, instead.Youtube.com's site permissions will look like this if set to block video autoplay. You can also opt to set the autoplay permission to allow autoplaying videos on youtube.com only and not other sites.
The AutoplayStopper Chrome extension can stop HTML5 (and Flash) media from autoplaying in YouTube and other sites. It will show the video preview thumbnail instead of autoplaying.
YouTube Flash Player extension for Firefox or Chrome:
A very lightweight add-on that forces YouTube to play videos using Flash Player because it consumes less material resources (CPU, RAM) and offers more resolution choices than the HTML5 Player.
The firefox extension Flash Control always worked for me. It disables autoplay of both flash and html5 media. It provides placeholders F for flash and V for html5 media that can be clicked to get played.
