Facebook Auto-Plays Video
My computer was running very slowly recently.
Nothing had significantly changed, so I hunted around a bit and then gave it up.
Then I noticed something new: on Facebook, every time I opened a page on which people had posted videos (more and more these days), I realized that all these videos were opening automatically. After a while, scrolling down my timeline, I might have a dozen videos running. That's absurd.
You can go into your settings and change the preference to "off" for automatically play video. BUT that will not stop the video from streaming to your computer, and thus it will continue to be a drag on your system.
I understand the impulse to have the video play as soon as you want to see it - no buffering period once you click the "play" button - but if the alternative is to have my system slowed down measurably (unless, of course, I don't have Facebook open in my browser, a distinct possibility), then I would prefer to wait a few seconds before I watch some cat video (which, granted, I do enjoy).
Nothing had significantly changed, so I hunted around a bit and then gave it up.
Then I noticed something new: on Facebook, every time I opened a page on which people had posted videos (more and more these days), I realized that all these videos were opening automatically. After a while, scrolling down my timeline, I might have a dozen videos running. That's absurd.
You can go into your settings and change the preference to "off" for automatically play video. BUT that will not stop the video from streaming to your computer, and thus it will continue to be a drag on your system.
I understand the impulse to have the video play as soon as you want to see it - no buffering period once you click the "play" button - but if the alternative is to have my system slowed down measurably (unless, of course, I don't have Facebook open in my browser, a distinct possibility), then I would prefer to wait a few seconds before I watch some cat video (which, granted, I do enjoy).
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