Comments on: How can I stop animated gifs from animating in Firebird?

Question: How can I stop animated gifs from animating in Firebird?

Slithy_Tove — Sat, 13 Dec 2003 01:50:50 -0800

Is there any way to stop animated gifs from animating in Firebird? I'm just starting to use 0.7 (the last stable release), and I really like it, except that you apparently can't turn off the damn gifs. This is a deal-killer for me, I'm afraid. A gif (or several gifs, and I'm looking at you, Guardian) flashing at me is really distracting when I'm trying to read a page. (Bouncing java applets ditto, but they're another kind of problem.)

I've looked on the Mozilla boards and the answer seems to be, 'no, there's no way to stop the animation', but I thought I'd ask around just to sure. I don't want to go back to IE...

Never mind, I suck. Found it on Usenet.

Administrator! Please hope me!

I'd still like more options than all/never/once, though. For once, IE has done it right: animate until user hits ESC.

By: skallas

skallas — Sat, 13 Dec 2003 04:00:39 -0800

The guardian has ads?

Never noticed.

By: Slithy_Tove

Slithy_Tove — Sat, 13 Dec 2003 04:12:58 -0800

I tried using a host file of ad sites (not yours, someone else's). It worked okay when browsing, but it caused long delays in Win2K loading—would hang on the 'preparing network connections' screen for about two minutes—and longer delays and even crashes if I tried to change my network config.

By: Mossy

Mossy — Sat, 13 Dec 2003 04:20:40 -0800

Just turn off all images - speed boost like no other.

By: angry modem

angry modem — Sat, 13 Dec 2003 05:53:36 -0800

Lynx is the fastest goddamn browser on the planet. No tabs, unfortunately.

By: fuzz

fuzz — Sat, 13 Dec 2003 06:53:38 -0800

Mozilla's Popup Manager and Image Manager do the job really well for me, but I still haven't found a good way to block Flash ads. I'm reluctant to start messing with hosts files -- it sounds fragile to me. Any ideas?

By: fvw

fvw — Sat, 13 Dec 2003 07:10:20 -0800

Just turn off plugins alltogether and only turn them on when you need them? Or for just flash, remove the flash plugin from your plugins directory and put it back when you need it.

By: riffola

riffola — Sat, 13 Dec 2003 07:11:40 -0800

Just hit Esc when the page is done loading for GIFs.

By: Slithy_Tove

Slithy_Tove — Sat, 13 Dec 2003 07:17:14 -0800

riffola, that doesn't work, at least not with Firebird 0.7. Maybe you have to tweak something? The link to the Google Usenet archive I posted shows how to edit the config file to make animated gifs either run continuously, not run at all, or run only once after the page loads. But I haven't been able to figure out how to make gifs stop on Esc, like IE.

By: normy

normy — Sat, 13 Dec 2003 08:06:48 -0800

The 'block images from this server' feature in Mozilla/Firebird works a treat on the Guardian site ;-)

By: Zonker

Zonker — Sat, 13 Dec 2003 08:58:51 -0800

Privoxy is a great way to filter ads, deanimate gifs, block assorted annoyances and just generally improve your browsing experience.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Sat, 13 Dec 2003 09:17:44 -0800

fuzz, get yourself a copy of the "click to view" mozilla/firebird extension. You get to pick and choose which flash things you want to see.

This means that news sites are readable again, but it does also mean the occasional movie website is a pain because you have to click a bunch of gray boxes to see anything. But overall I love it and it's worth the hassle -- you have flash only when you want it.

By: phatboy

phatboy — Sat, 13 Dec 2003 11:23:25 -0800

Another vote here for privoxy, I haven't seen an ad or popup in a year.

By: cheaily

cheaily — Sun, 14 Dec 2003 06:43:48 -0800

Install the "Things They Left Out" extension. There's an option in that to control how often animated GIF's loop. Unfortunately, it's browser-wide, there's no per-site configuration.