When you think of Auto-Play, you often think of when you place a CD or DVD in your drawer and the menu pops up to give you all your options for installing the program. In 
the past, auto play has been blamed for injecting Malware on unsuspecting computer users. This was especially true if you were using a thumb drive. That type of infection can still be a threat but today, we are focusing another type of problem that you have a lot less control over. It is the auto playing of video content on the web.
You might be browsing the Internet looking for that great hotel deal or you might be looking for that great computer deal online. When you open the webpage, a huge ad displays on your browser and a guy starts telling you what a great car this is and why you should buy it. Of course, if you had your speakers blaring from last night’s online rock concert, you will probably jump through the ceiling when the unexpected ad starts to play. The good news is that this was a benign ad and it did not put any destructive Malware on your system.
If you are using a PC, it might not be as big of a deal because PC users usually have much larger data plans then mobile users. If you using a phone with a limited amount of data usage, these videos that play automatically are also automatically eating into your phones data usage.
It is not without saying that right now Facebook is probably one of the biggest offenders of the auto play syndrome. Just recently, Facebook added a feature that allows videos to play as soon as you scroll past them. It is not only annoying but it is downright obnoxious. Facebook offers no direct way to stop this behavior. My thought is that maybe they should just help pay for our bandwidth. Since we know that is never going to happen, about the only thing you can do is scroll past really fast or immediately stop the video as you pass over it.
We all understand that websites have to survive and in times past, they left it up to us to click on relevant ads that might interest us. I often do see ads that are of interest to me when I visit sites and often times I will visit and sometimes purchase products from these advertised sites. On the other hand, if I visit a site and the ad starts to talk to me and play without my consent, I leave the site entirely and in many cases never come back.
Since most auto playing ads are flash based, some browsers like Firefox use an extension to display flash content. There are sometimes settings that will block flash content and only play it when you click the activate button that is located on the media. Of course, you could just keep your speakers off but that does little good with Facebook because the auto play only plays the video, not the sound.
In addition to being obnoxious, downloading these videos can also use precious resources that can slow down your network. This might not be as big a deal if you have a super fast cable connection but that is not always the case. We have lots of customers who live in rural areas that do not have access to fast Internet and are on limited resources. These ads and movies that play by themselves are doing a great injustice for those folks. It is slowing down their download speeds and using up bandwidth that they will most likely have to pay extra for.
If you are a Webmaster, do yourself a favor and do not allow auto playing ads or videos on your website. If you do, you will most likely by loosing lots of web traffic to a competitor that doesn’t.
Posted by, Ross Deprey from Computer Geeks Online.net
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