Comment by tapp | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tapp | Hacker News Reader

I apologize in advance for potentially thread-jacking, but this story reminds me of an issue on which I'd really like to get other HN readers advice:

I'm seeing more and more stories online including animated GIFs by default like this one does.

Even when they add value to the story, I find the constant motion distracting at best, and seizure-inducing at worst.

Does anyone have recommendations re: the best way to block animated GIFs from auto-playing in Chrome?

Quick initial searching turned up this Stack Exchange thread http://superuser.com/questions/23655/how-to-stop-animated-gi... but the user script listed no longer seems to be available, and there is a debate in the thread re the usability of the other extension options listed.

Check out this [0] post. I tried the first extension and it worked but doesn't pause by default (ESC key toggles gif animation). I didn't try the other two but this looks like what you are looking for.

[0] http://chris.pirillo.com/how-to-disable-animated-gifs-in-chr...

QuickJava is a Firefox extension that lets you toggle Java, Javascript, Cookies, Image Animations, Flash, Silverlight, Images, Stylesheets and Proxy with individual buttons in your toolbar or addon bar.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/quickjava/

You've had a seizure induced by an animated gif? That is nasty.

Photosensitive epilepsy (seizures triggered by sudden changes in luminescence) doesn't affect too many people, but it's an awful condition and sooner or later one of your users will have it. The general rule here is "no more than 3 flashes per second." [1]

You probably don't have a good design reason to use strobe lights anyway. Slow those .gifs down, please.

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/seizure.html

The Military maintains MIL-STD-1472 which contains the duty cycle for flashing text. Here's an interesting (and occasionally submitted) discussion on jzw's blog: http://www.jwz.org/blog/2013/08/a-light-has-gone-out-on-the-...

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