How to stop autoplay videos
I sympathize. We all deal with this annoyance. In fact, I'm willing to bet that everyone reading this article who hasn't already solved this problem knows exactly what I'm talking about.
Most of these videos run on Shockwave Flash, so I'm going to concentrate on that technology. The trick isn't to block Flash entirely, but to make it work only with your permission.
How you do this varies with each browser. So I'll offer instructions for the three most popular ones. Christopher Breen of Macworld offered these alternative fixes as well.
[Have a tech question Ask PCWorld Contributing Editor Lincoln Spector. Send your query to answer@pcworld.com.]
Chrome
From then on, a Flash window will appear as a gray box with a jigsaw piece icon in the center. If you want to watch the video, click in that box.
Firefox
When you visit a page with an embedded Flash video, the video window will again be a box, but this time it will be white with Adobe's Flash logo (a stylized letter 'f') in the center. A gray bar at the top of the page will give you options to continue blocking or allow the flash.
If you click Allow, you'll get options to Allow Now or Allow and Remember. If you want to allow it at all, I recommend Allow Now.
Internet Explorer
The Flash windows may not appear at all, or they may appear blank. A bar at the bottom of the window will offer options to allow Flash to play. Click the x on the right to say "No."