● Covered by 1 source · 1 reportLow impact1 neutral
uBlock Origin Filter Blocks Autoplay Videos on TechCrunch
Key points
- Blocks JW Player and Connatix video scripts on TechCrunch.
- Hides empty video player boxes with cosmetic rules.
- Filter works with uBlock Origin on Firefox (MV2 version).
- Prevents background audio from autoplaying videos.
Blocking Autoplay Videos
TechCrunch articles often feature autoplaying videos embedded within the content. These videos, powered by JW Player and sometimes accompanied by Connatix's floating ad player, continue to run in the background even when hidden, consuming resources and playing audio.
uBlock Origin Solution
A specific uBlock Origin filter has been developed to address this issue. The filter targets the scripts associated with content.jwplatform.com, ssl.p.jwpcdn.com, and connatix.com when accessed from techcrunch.com. Blocking these scripts prevents the videos from loading entirely.
Hiding Player Elements
In addition to blocking the video scripts, cosmetic rules are included in the filter to hide the empty boxes left behind by the blocked video players. These rules target specific CSS classes: .wp-block-techcrunch-jw-player-embed and .jw-player-inline-promo on techcrunch.com.
Implementation Details
Users can apply this filter by pasting the provided lines into the 'My filters' section of their uBlock Origin dashboard and clicking 'Apply changes'. This filter is compatible with the full MV2 version of uBlock Origin on Firefox. If TechCrunch changes its video vendors, the cosmetic rules may still hide the player boxes, but new network rules would be required to stop audio from new video sources.
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Reporting from
A new uBlock Origin filter prevents autoplaying videos on TechCrunch articles. This filter targets JW Player embeds and Connatix's floating ad player scripts to stop video loading and hide the empty player boxes.