Maxvelocity, have you tried adding the Magic Actions extension? It works like a charm for me. You set its Options either to Force Player Type: Flash, or set Stop Autoplay (in which case you'll have to click a video twice).

Click to play was never available for HTML5, so it can't be restored.

You are employing a narrow, technical definition of Click to play in order to make your argument that "it can't be restored". When I discuss Click to play, I'm obviously concerned with its functionality, not its internal processes. The player software difference is not even evident to a user who only clicks to play and view videos. I'm obviously aware now that a restored Click to play would not have the same internal processes as the previous Flash version. That doesn't mean that the Click to play feature as I know and use it couldn't be restored.

And as I said before, Click to play could also be restored via having Opera 30 set to use Flash for YouTube, as Opera 12 does; again it would obviously require different internal processes. In fact, I've found that simply setting Magic Actions on Opera 30 to Force Player Type: Flash (without even setting Stop Autoplay) restores Click to play functionality.

Thank you for the informative response. I'm concerned that apparently you do not intend to restore Click to play (for HTML5) as a built-in feature, but I guess this will be okay as long as you facilitate the necessary extension. Please continue to do so.

Flash is a plugin, HTML5 is not. Thats why it can't stop it.

Interesting distinction, but the extension mentioned above does stop it. I doubt its developer is smarter than Opera's developers.

Thats because when you go to YouTube with Opera 12 is loads the Flash version.

If Opera 12 can do it, then Opera 30 could do it, if desired.

Thats just related to the 30 release and has already been fixed.

The sudden failure of Click to play may also be related to the 30 release, and may also be fixable.

I have indeed found an extension (M.A. for YT) that stops the autoplay.

As someone who really doesn't like using add-ons (since I'm aware they tend to cause unexpected problems), I'm disappointed that the browser can't prevent HTML5 as well as Flash from autoplaying, and finding it difficult to believe that this 'problem' lies solely with YouTube. I think that browsers have deliberately made it harder to restrict video play, probably to please ad-distributors. Click to Play still works on Opera 12.17, and doubtless Opera 30 could control HTML5 play if they wanted to.

YouTube's switch to HTML5 as default occurred early this year, and it's been a couple of months or so since I had to install an add-on for Firefox forcing it to play Flash on YouTube, to work in conjunction with the Click to Play add-on I already had. (Firefox had discarded their built in click to play feature long before then.) So, it's odd that only now does Opera lose this capability.

Also, I see other new threads here (e.g. this one) reporting more serious problems related to YouTube, occurring with the update to version 30. I suspect that click to play works fine on 29, but can't test this.

In short, I think that our inability to stop auto-play is more or less intended, and this is unfortunate.

Click-to-play suddenly stopped working when I launched Opera today. YouTube videos now simply play automatically, which drains my download allowance. I didn't change any settings recently, and I checked to verify that Settings; Plug-ins - Click to Play is still ticked.

I have Windows 8 on a pc, and my current up-to-date Opera version is 30.0.1835.59.

Please help.