Stop Video autoplay

[operajohn57]

operajohn57 last edited by

Just read a forum post from 2017 where a user was begging for a way to stop videos from auto-playing. Well, here we are at the end of 2019 and guess what.. the confounded videos still keep playing. I don't believe I should need to go searching for obscure 3rd-party apps to complete a basic browser function.

I use the News function on the home page extensively, and almost every new page I open kick-starts a video, stealing speed and bandwidth, and interfering with the music I am trying to listen to. This is so annoying.

So, rather than customising the fripperies, like tabs with fancy colo(u)rs, . I'm sure we would all be so grateful.

Thanks in advance.

[leocg]

leocg Moderator Volunteer @operajohn57 last edited by

@operajohn57 See https://www.chromium.org/audio-video/autoplay and https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2017/09/autoplay-policy-changes

[burnout426]

burnout426 Volunteer last edited by

I wonder if

launcher.exe --disable-features=PreloadMediaEngagementData,AutoplayIgnoreWebAudio,MediaEngagementBypassAutoplayPolicies

still works like the autoplay-policy-changes page says.

[operajohn57]

operajohn57 @leocg last edited by

@leocg Hi leocg, thanks for the link. I am not a programmer or developer, so I don't understand why a link to a Chromium page is appropriate, nevertheless the information on that page seems to be saying that developers should not use auto-play unnecessarily, and should make it easy for users to switch it off anyway. So, the programming standard is there, I woulkd like to know why Opera doesn't follow this standard and how I can stop the videos playing. The on/off switch should be a basic operation within the browser and not reliant on me sourcing a 3rd-party app from somewhere on the web.
Thanks again.

[operajohn57]

operajohn57 @burnout426 last edited by

@burnout426 Hi burnout426, I'm using a Mac machine, so I don't think .exe commands will work... but I'm just a user, not a programmer or developer, so happy to learn something new if necessary.

operajohn57

[leocg]

leocg Moderator Volunteer @operajohn57 last edited by

@operajohn57 Opera is a Chromium based browser, so it will/should follow Chromium auto-play policy.

[burnout426]

burnout426 Volunteer @operajohn57 last edited by

@operajohn57 To try the commands on Mac, I would guess you'd do this:

In Opera, goto the URL opera://about and take note of the install location. Then, close Opera.

Open up the Terminal app and enter this command:

open /Applications/Opera.app/Contents/MacOS/Opera --args --disable-features=PreloadMediaEngagementData,AutoplayIgnoreWebAudio,MediaEngagementBypassAutoplayPolicies

(Adjust the path to Opera to what opera://about says.)

[operajohn57]

operajohn57 @burnout426 last edited by

@burnout426
Thanks burnout426, not sure I understand the command but I'll try it out once I have a bit of time, cheers for the help.

[operajohn57]

operajohn57 @leocg last edited by

@leocg
ok, thanks leocg