# Can I somehow stop news pages from auto-reloading while I'm reading them?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-somehow-stop-news-pages-from-auto-reloading-while-im-reading-them/501415
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [June 30, 2009, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-somehow-stop-news-pages-from-auto-reloading-while-im-reading-them/501415 "2009-06-30T00:13:59Z")
**Posts on this page:** 11
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@TheMadHun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheMadHun)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2009, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-somehow-stop-news-pages-from-auto-reloading-while-im-reading-them/501415/1 "2009-06-30T00:13:59Z")
Can I somehow stop news pages from auto-reloading while I’m reading them?
I don’t know who invented this but it drives me nuts.
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### Author:  [@ParentalAdvisory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParentalAdvisory)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2009, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-somehow-stop-news-pages-from-auto-reloading-while-im-reading-them/501415/2 "2009-06-30T01:37:17Z")
Probably Fox News invented it, since it’s the only site I see that does that.
It’s horrible and annoying.
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### Author:  [@postcards](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/postcards)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2009, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-somehow-stop-news-pages-from-auto-reloading-while-im-reading-them/501415/3 "2009-06-30T01:41:07Z")
No, the New York Times does it as well.
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### Author:  [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2009, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-somehow-stop-news-pages-from-auto-reloading-while-im-reading-them/501415/4 "2009-06-30T01:52:10Z")
Could you link to a few examples?
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### Author:  [@Projammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Projammer)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2009, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-somehow-stop-news-pages-from-auto-reloading-while-im-reading-them/501415/5 "2009-06-30T01:56:16Z")
If you’re using IE, hit the ESC key when the page is loaded to the point you want to read. That should abort most running scripts.
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### Author:  [@Keeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeve)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2009, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-somehow-stop-news-pages-from-auto-reloading-while-im-reading-them/501415/6 "2009-06-30T13:36:24Z")
I’ve never noticed this anywhere. Can you give an example?
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### Author:  [@SmackFu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmackFu)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2009, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-somehow-stop-news-pages-from-auto-reloading-while-im-reading-them/501415/7 "2009-06-30T14:40:22Z")
Firefox has an option for this, under Options \> Advanced \> General. “Warn me when web sites try to redirect or reload the page.”
This blog post shows what it looks like:
[http://diveintomark.org/archives/2007/02/08/howto-block-meta-refresh](http://diveintomark.org/archives/2007/02/08/howto-block-meta-refresh)
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### Author:  [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2009, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-somehow-stop-news-pages-from-auto-reloading-while-im-reading-them/501415/8 "2009-06-30T16:46:52Z")
I have heard that Drudge does it and then makes claims to large volumes of hits.
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### Author:  [@ChrisBooth12](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChrisBooth12)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2009, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-somehow-stop-news-pages-from-auto-reloading-while-im-reading-them/501415/9 "2009-06-30T16:50:27Z")
Firefox with noscript installed. You also get the added bonus of having less crap all over your browser window
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### Author:  [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2009, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-somehow-stop-news-pages-from-auto-reloading-while-im-reading-them/501415/10 "2009-06-30T17:45:56Z")
The BBC does this with sports matches and the like.
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### Author:  [@TheMadHun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheMadHun)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2009, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-somehow-stop-news-pages-from-auto-reloading-while-im-reading-them/501415/11 "2009-06-30T23:33:55Z")
> [@SmackFu](#):
>
> Firefox has an option for this, under Options \> Advanced \> General. "Warn me when web sites try to redirect or reload the page.
Tried that, but I have lots of sites that reload for every operation, like my bank, credit card, and daily crossword puzzle. I wish that kind of option was on a visible button, like AdBlock. But it’s just too much trouble to change for individual sites.
The New York Times is the worst [http://nytimes.com](http://nytimes.com)
Houston Chronicle [http://chron.com](http://chron.com)
Also Yahoo News [http://news.yahoo.com/](http://news.yahoo.com/)
and [http://Topix.com](http://Topix.com)
:
Among others