Hacker News Reader

Comment by btilly | Hacker News Reader

Don't autoplay the frigging video! (Maybe some editor can modify the title to warn us?)

I hate sites that start playing video without my asking. Doubly so ones with loud noise. I have sound on my computer for things that really need to get my attention. Not because some site wants to interrupt me and everyone around me.

I wish there was a way to vote this link down so that other people who will be similarly jarred wouldn't have to experience it.

View on HN

A humble suggestion: use Flashblock extension. It is also effective against flash based ads.

Does nobody notice the irony of a discussion of capped data plans centering on a website which autoplays video?

I don't think that is irony.

If you use Firefox, you can set plugins.click_to_play to true in about:config. Of course it won't help for HTML5 content which starts playing automatically, but it can improve performance with making Flash playable only on demand.

Chrome has click to play plugins as well, it's hugely improved my browsing even on wifi.

For reference in chrome 21 this is under settings->show advanced->privacy->content settings->plug-ins->click to play.

Or just: chrome://chrome/settings/content > Plug-ins > Click to play.

On firefox you can set click to play (about:config -> plugins.click_to_play)

On Chrome, go here: chrome://chrome/settings/content

Then on Plugins, select 'Click to play'.

There's Flashblock and other addons for that.

I have sound on my computer for things that really need to get my attention. Not because some site wants to interrupt me and everyone around me.

Why do you expect websites to conform to your expectations? There is nothing inherent about the web that suggests it would. You'll save yourself a lot of trouble by being proactive rather than waiting for the world to catch up to your standards.

The social contract holds that you don't start yelling at people just because they walk up to you. It's user-hostile web design.

"Why do you expect websites to conform to your expectations?"

You mean the user of the website? Well yes I would darn hope they would!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com