San Jose Mercury News - Block AutoPlay Video

[stevedb321]

On certain pages of the San Jose Mercury News (here is an example -

Code: Select all

https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/12/01/stanford-fights-its-way-to-big-game-victory-over-cal/

) there is a video that pops up in the lower right of the page and plays (audio muted) If you close this window the same video (but larger) continues playing slightly lower down the page. I think most articles in the sports section have this annoying behavior.

I've gone into Firefox's about:config and changed the media.autoplay.enabled=false and also several other media.autoplay settings to see if that works - but it doesn't help.

Is there any rule I can use to a) block the pop up video in the lower right from even opening. Prevent both videos from playing. Frankly if I don't see them ever again that would be fine.

thanks,

[mapx]

I guess you aren't using ABP => an anti adblocking window pops up and you cannot navigate anymore.

If you are using uBo => no anti adb crap and no video is starting automatically on that page.
So .. I cannot reproduce your issue.

[stevedb321]

@mapx -

"I guess you aren't using ABP => an anti adblocking window pops up and you cannot navigate anymore."

not sure I understand what you are saying here. There are no anti-ad blocking windows popping up. I can navigate just fine. These videos are just ones that start running. They can be closed in the case of the small one that always pops up on the lower left or stopped on the one that is further down the page. However doing this manually is quite annoying.

I have a few custom ABP rules for the Mercury on one computer:

||prodmg2.blob.core.windows.net/*.js
||mercurynews.com/_static/*PAYWALL*
||mnginteractive.com/live/partners/*.js
||mnginteractive.com/live/js/jquery/jBar/*

which seem to prevent both meter count increment and some other small behaviors that are annoying.

I also have a block for the jwplayer which I believe is the player involved:

||jwplayer.com^
||jwcdn.com^
||jwplatform.com^

However blocking the jwplayer in this fashion is a brute force solution as it then blocks playing of any video. In fact, the placeholders don't even show up.

This computer I am on now has all the jwplayer stuff blocked. But my other computer (Mac Laptop) does not and it has the auto running video problem. I am guessing the custom rules are not the same. I'll check now and verify.

[mapx]

I get no video on that page, should I click something to see it ?

[stevedb321]

Well, I don't see the video until I comment out the following custom rules:

! ||jwplayer.com^
! ||jwcdn.com^
! ||jwplatform.com^
! ||sendtonews.com^

However with these custom rules commented out, a small video (always floats to lower right of the view) You can see it in the link below:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/9UKyCfZdrjtH6Tyg8

Again, if I activate the above custom rules then I don't see the video either.