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How do I stop ads from automatically playing in Mozilla?

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Ads just start playing audio out of the blue. No ad appears on the screen, just the audio. How do I stop this from happening?

Ads just start playing audio out of the blue. No ad appears on the screen, just the audio. How do I stop this from happening?

All Replies (5)

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Hi, try installing an add-on such as Adblock Plus.

Hope that will work for you.

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Do a malware check with several malware scanning programs on the Windows computer. Please scan with all programs because each program detects different malware. All these programs have free versions.

Make sure that you update each program to get the latest version of their databases before doing a scan.

You can also do a check for a rootkit infection with TDSSKiller.

See also:

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This didn't answer the question as to how to STOP videos from automatically playing in ads.

Modified by Delores

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You can try this extension:

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Hi dbsowders, some ads use plugins, such as Flash, and to control Flash on a page, you can use the click-to-play feature (more detail below). Some ads use Firefox's built-in media player and there is a setting to stop autoplay for such media. Unfortunately sites currently can work around that setting by sending a play command to the player; that is scheduled to be fixed in Firefox 41.

Click-to-Play for Flash

To block pages from using Flash without your approval, open the Add-ons page using either:

  • Ctrl+Shift+a
  • "3-bar" menu button (or Tools menu) > Add-ons

In the left column, click Plugins. Look for "Shockwave Flash" and change "Always Activate" to "Ask to Activate".

If you are not accustomed to using the "Ask to Activate" feature with any of your plugins, here's how it works:

When you visit a site that wants to use Flash, you should see a notification icon in the address bar and usually (but not always) one of the following: a link in a black rectangle in the page or an infobar sliding down between the toolbar area and the page.

The plugin notification icon in the address bar typically looks like a small, dark gray Lego block. When the page wants to use a soft-blocked plugin, the icon turns red to alert you to the concern.

If you see a good reason to use Flash, and the site looks trustworthy, you can go ahead and click the notification icon in the address bar to allow Flash. You can trust the site for the time being or permanently.

But some pages use Flash only for tracking or playing ads, so if you don't see an immediate need for Flash, feel free to ignore the notification! It will just sit there in case you want to use it later.

Autoplay of HTML5 media

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter. Click the button promising to be careful.

(2) In the search box above the list, type or paste media and pause while the list is filtered

(3) Double-click the media.autoplay.enabled preference to switch it from true to false.