Is there a browser add-on that can "pretend" to run video?

[xoggoth]

Don't really understand why you have a problem. Tried the site on your link and it all seemed fine and quick with or without ABP turned on.

[WTFH]

Hmm, well none at the moment.

I've heard great things of ad block Plus. So I wonder if that would quieten these pages down a bit.

I don't mind the distraction aspect of the ads, as I can ignore that. But it's as if they are constantly refreshing and grinding away pinching all the processor time and memory, and in some cases actually tipping the page up and down slightly all the time which is worse, but worst of all as I said actually hanging the browser!

I'm running ABP on the ClientCo laptop and had no problem loading zerohedge earlier. It works on most browsers.

[OwlHoot]

what ad blockers/pop-up blockers are you running?

Hmm, well none at the moment.

I've heard great things of ad block Plus. So I wonder if that would quieten these pages down a bit.

I don't mind the distraction aspect of the ads, as I can ignore that. But it's as if they are constantly refreshing and grinding away pinching all the processor time and memory, and in some cases actually tipping the page up and down slightly all the time which is worse, but worst of all as I said actually hanging the browser!

[WTFH]

what ad blockers/pop-up blockers are you running?

[OwlHoot]

Some web sites I visit absolutely cane the bollox off my PC, performance wise, presumably because of all the videos and scripts they run.

ZeroHedge is a good example, or rather Bad example of this (and yes I know it's full of kooks and maniacs, so please don't bother wasting a post to point this out)

Worse still, some web sites actually freeze the browser (more often Firefox than Chrome, although no browser seems completely immune) with the "script has stopped working .." message.

So I wondered if there are browser ad ons that can trick a web server into thinking the browser is faithfully playing all these wretched videos when in fact all it shows for each is a still frame (which I could click in the unlikely event I wanted to watch one).

Any ideas?

I know one can disable scripting, but that might prevent the page from working at all.

Also, I know many web servers recognise the de facto standard "?m=1" option on URLs, which tells the servers to send a "sparser" page intended for mobiles. But one must remember to add that each time, and it isn't supported on all sites.

A really useful add-on would be one that allowed scripting for, say, two seconds after a new page was delivered but then froze it (with the option of manually allowing scripting for a further increment, say by the user pressing a button, for when the page obviously hadn't been completely formatted).