uBlock Origin filter to block autoplay videos in TechCrunch

ltbarcly3

I know I didn't wake up in 2011 because uBlock Origin exists. Yet someone is talking about TechCrunch, so the most likely conclusion is that uBlock Origin existed long before I thought it did, like 2011.

ghtjason

Firefox's built-in "Block Audio and Video" in Settings -> Autoplay seems to do a good enough job for most sites (with exceptions whenever it breaks something).

lakeviewterrace

The solution for shitty web design is not to come up with clever workarounds. The solution is to stop visiting these sites entirely, as traffic emboldens them further. It's like deliberately going into The Worst Toilet In Scotland so you can read the news scribbled on the walls.

NietTim

I've just stopped visiting websites that make it impossible to read their articles. It has gotten completely ridiculous.

HelloUsername

If you just want to read the text body of an article, there's plenty third party scripts you can block on Techcrunch through the advanced settings in uBlock Origin: cloudflare.com connatix.com d34azmi6bxg5fz.cloudfront.net videos-cloudfront-usp.jwpsrv.com facebook.net google.com googletagmanager.com gstatic.com jwpcdn.com jwplatform.com jwplayer-dualstack.map.fastly.net assets-jpcust.jwpsrv.com jwplayer.com jwpltx.com jwpsrv.com parsely.com sail-horizon.com servenobid.com wp.com

thetallgeek

The first thing I do when I get access to any computer is install uBlock. A friend comes for tech support, first install then anything else.

Jakob

Disabling JavaScript by default makes this a non-issue on most sites. Just checked TechCrunch and it’s great without it. Likely like the designer intended. On iOS, Brave browser makes toggling JS particularly easy. 90% of my mobile web browsing is without JavaScript. It’s much faster, cleaner, safer. And for the occasional website that needs JS, I can toggle it. Similar to many here in the thread, I then tend to not visit sites anymore that require JS/are too bloated.

bborrez

In uBlock Origin, I allow everything except 3rd party frames, then I use uMatrix to whitelist acceptable domains and requests. These are the only privacy add-ons I use and they are amazing.

kotaKat

Any solutions for eBay? The super hostile "eBay Live" videos intertwined everywhere on the main page are awful. Either it's bad AI coverart (bonus points for 'glamming it up' with a 'sexy lady' as your stream photo to lure desperate men in), or it loads into a stream with some random middle-aged chud trying to hawk bad baseball cards for "$2 starts!" as you're trying to scroll through the listings.

Good4boothee

Last time I tried to manually block some autoplay video with ublock I ended up with invisible video, that still started to play sound, sometime after page loaded. Maintaining filter lists is thankless job, at least looking at ublock github issues tab, where people complain about broken filters few minutes after target page made some changes.

VCFundedGenYer

This is unnecessary. Use the built in browser autoplay block. And if that doesn't work, use reader view (as you always should)

drcongo

Why not just block TechCrunch? Everything about it is appalling.

baal80spam

Is there a script or filter to block autoplay on YT? I think I've tried everything, and there is nothing that does it reliably. It's quite infuriating.

account42

I wish there was a setting to make audio and video opt in per site. Most random sites have no business using anything but text and the occasional image plus whatever fancy stylesheets keep their designers busy.

butz

Every decent web browser must implement controls to disable download and autoplay of any media, be it video, audio or even gif images. And very neat feature would be to inform user how much bandwidth this media file will consume before clicking play button. And using scrollbar should not be considered as an interaction with website that enables autoplay.