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Auto plating videos and animated GIFs are the bane of my Internet browsing. Luckily, both are easy to stop with Firefox.

ConceptJunkie 13y ago
Back when animated ads were the thing - maybe they still are, I don't know - I quickly realized it was difficult for me to read an article with a monkey bouncing back and forth right next to it or there was an epilepsy-inducing banner telling me I was the 1000000000000000th visitor. It's not even a matter of being annoying, but of literally degrading the value of the content of the site. Back when I couldn't block the ad outright, I would simply resize the window and scroll it off-screen. I used to use hostfile-based ad blocking and then started using AdBlock when it came along. The thing is, I'm not opposed to ads on principle or anything. I'm just opposed to ads that wreck the product being provided in exchange for the ad. It's like "Sure, I'll let you use my site, but I get to punch you in the head in exchange." There are plenty of sites I've disabled AdBlock on, although I figure the odds of an ad on any random site being relevant or interesting to me is about 10000 to 1. I spent a while with AdBlock off on Facebook and thought the ads being shown me were really pathetic given how much Facebook should know about me and be able to target me. But in general, I'm only opposed to ads when they ruin whatever they are being used to monetize. It's one reason I stopped watching broadcast TV now that ads consume 1/3 of the actual viewing time. Autoplaying videos definitely fall in that category, and I normally keep my computer muted anyway because the last thing I want is some stupid website blaring noise at me. I only unmute the computer if I'm specifically going to watch a video or listen to something. And let's face it, these ads will all be for banks or cars or some stupid political candidate using the movie-trailer-voice guy to tell me that so-and-so eats puppies and kittens, etc., etc. It's all just useless noise.

ConceptJunkie 13y ago

Back when animated ads were the thing - maybe they still are, I don't know - I quickly realized it was difficult for me to read an article with a monkey bouncing back and forth right next to it or there was an epilepsy-inducing banner telling me I was the 1000000000000000th visitor. It's not even a matter of being annoying, but of literally degrading the value of the content of the site. Back when I couldn't block the ad outright, I would simply resize the window and scroll it off-screen. I used to use hostfile-based ad blocking and then started using AdBlock when it came along. The thing is, I'm not opposed to ads on principle or anything. I'm just opposed to ads that wreck the product being provided in exchange for the ad. It's like "Sure, I'll let you use my site, but I get to punch you in the head in exchange." There are plenty of sites I've disabled AdBlock on, although I figure the odds of an ad on any random site being relevant or interesting to me is about 10000 to 1. I spent a while with AdBlock off on Facebook and thought the ads being shown me were really pathetic given how much Facebook should know about me and be able to target me. But in general, I'm only opposed to ads when they ruin whatever they are being used to monetize. It's one reason I stopped watching broadcast TV now that ads consume 1/3 of the actual viewing time. Autoplaying videos definitely fall in that category, and I normally keep my computer muted anyway because the last thing I want is some stupid website blaring noise at me. I only unmute the computer if I'm specifically going to watch a video or listen to something. And let's face it, these ads will all be for banks or cars or some stupid political candidate using the movie-trailer-voice guy to tell me that so-and-so eats puppies and kittens, etc., etc. It's all just useless noise.