How can I stop animated gifs from animating in Firebird?

December 13, 2003 1:50 AM

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.

posted by Slithy_Tove to Computers & Internet (12 answers total)

Response by poster: 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.
posted by Slithy_Tove at 4:12 AM on December 13, 2003

Just turn off all images - speed boost like no other.
posted by Mossy at 4:20 AM on December 13, 2003

Lynx is the fastest goddamn browser on the planet. No tabs, unfortunately.
posted by angry modem at 5:53 AM on December 13, 2003

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?
posted by fuzz at 6:53 AM on December 13, 2003

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.
posted by fvw at 7:10 AM on December 13, 2003

Just hit Esc when the page is done loading for GIFs.
posted by riffola at 7:11 AM on December 13, 2003

Response by poster: 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.
posted by Slithy_Tove at 7:17 AM on December 13, 2003

The 'block images from this server' feature in Mozilla/Firebird works a treat on the Guardian site ;-)
posted by normy at 8:06 AM on December 13, 2003

Privoxy is a great way to filter ads, deanimate gifs, block assorted annoyances and just generally improve your browsing experience.
posted by Zonker at 8:58 AM on December 13, 2003

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.
posted by mathowie at 9:17 AM on December 13, 2003

Another vote here for privoxy, I haven't seen an ad or popup in a year.
posted by phatboy at 11:23 AM on December 13, 2003

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.
posted by cheaily at 6:43 AM on December 14, 2003