Auto-Play Videos
Suddenly, it seems like every website known to man is foisting videos that play the instant the page loads on their readers.
Suddenly, it seems like every website known to man is foisting videos that play the instant the page loads on their readers. ABC News was the first prominent offender that I noticed, seemingly blaring something on every page. But the last few days, it’s been constant.
I get the need to generate advertising revenue. Indeed, I’ve been doing it at OTB for the last six or seven years. But it’s one thing to have ads in the sidebar and quite another to have sound assaulting us through our speakers.It’s especially irksome for those, like myself, who open multiple pages at a time in separate browser tabs.
We’ll see whether this is a passing fad that goes away because of user revolt, or whether users take more aggressive means to block advertising. Or, as I’ve started doing more and more, leaving the speakers muted unless I’m specifically trying to listen to something.
It’s even more annoying for people who are occasionally doing a bit of innocent web surfing in between tasks at work.
It’s Geocities 2011 edition.
This is a large motivating factor for why I run firefox with no-script adblock plus and no flash (security is my biggest concern). Keeps me safe and I avoid the annoying ads. I do have my plugins configured to show ads from some blogs including this one. I don’t run flash ads though as they’ve been a source of security issues over the last few years.
And especially when the woman in the video is moaning that irritating, “Oh! Oh! Yeah, baby!”
I hate that so much.
Are we talking about “http://abcnews.go.com”? Because I just pulled it up, and no videos started playing. Is the “feature” intermittent? (I’m running Opera 11.11 on Suse 11.2 — wonder if that makes a difference.).
@Sam: Click on virtually any article.
OK, JJ, I did – about 5 or 6. No videos started. Maybe Linux scares ’em….