# How the hell do you disable animations in Internet Explorer? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 6, 2003, 8:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-hell-do-you-disable-animations-in-internet-explorer/180037 "2003-06-06T08:05:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2003, 8:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-hell-do-you-disable-animations-in-internet-explorer/180037/1 "2003-06-06T08:05:23Z")
How do I get Internet Explorer to stop playing animations and videos on web pages? I already turned off Tools \> Internet Opptions \> Advanced \> Play Animations and Play Videos. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2003, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-hell-do-you-disable-animations-in-internet-explorer/180037/2 "2003-06-06T08:08:53Z")
Did you then shut down and restart IE? Or View\>Refresh? ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2003, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-hell-do-you-disable-animations-in-internet-explorer/180037/3 "2003-06-06T10:03:04Z")
I’m not sure if that turns off Flash anims. I think you need to switch something else off, maybe Active-X? ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2003, 10:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-hell-do-you-disable-animations-in-internet-explorer/180037/4 "2003-06-06T10:09:23Z")
Probably not very helpful advice: you can stop animated GIFs by hitting “escape” when they load. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2003, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-hell-do-you-disable-animations-in-internet-explorer/180037/5 "2003-06-06T12:22:26Z")
You need to define what you mean by “animations.” Animated GIFs are different from Shockwave flash animations which are different from those animated ads that are used instead of popups. ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2003, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-hell-do-you-disable-animations-in-internet-explorer/180037/6 "2003-06-07T11:36:43Z")
\>Did you then shut down and restart IE? -Yes. \>you can stop animated GIFs by hitting “escape” when they load. -But this stops the entire process of loading a page, defeating the purpose of browsing in the first place, right? \>You need to define what you mean by “animations.” -I mean things that are lifelike, having motion and causing visual commotion over there on the side while I am trying to read. I guess I don’t know anything about their format - maybe I will try following some of those links to examine their source. But then I don’t want to invite more trouble. I’m really looking for a switch that says “Exhibit asinine and annoying behavior that no user could possibly want”, so that I can change its default state of Enabled. ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2003, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-hell-do-you-disable-animations-in-internet-explorer/180037/7 "2003-06-07T11:58:56Z")
You have to disable Active-X. Or get rid of flash. I felt the same way. I load a web page and some ad starts blaring away or an animation keeps jumping all over the screen. Getting rid of Active-X might not be a good idea, since you won’t be able to read .pdf’s. So I have my browser prompt me. It gets a bit annoying, but bettar than all the stupid ads wasting bandwidth and being obnoxious. ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2003, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-hell-do-you-disable-animations-in-internet-explorer/180037/8 "2003-06-07T12:43:06Z")
OK, the ones I am annoyed at turn out to be “Flash”. How do I get rid of that? Do you mean, uninstall the “Flash” program? I’m usually using IE6, sometimes Netscape. Didn’t see anything about Flash in IE’s options. And what’s the difference between Active-X and Flash? Are they two different products of the same general type? Is the great majority of annoying ads Active-X, or is it Flash, or are there many of both kinds around? If I have Adobe Acrobat Reader, do I also need Active-X to read PDF’s? Thanks for the help. I’m amazed anybody can read with this foolishness going on 3" away - why doesn’t everybody pay $100 extra to buy PCs that don’t do this? I’d rather have bird droppings in the middle of the screen… ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2003, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-hell-do-you-disable-animations-in-internet-explorer/180037/9 "2003-06-07T12:45:02Z")
I forgot to ask one more - my other computer, at work, doesn’t have Flash, and many web sites make me go through a dialog declining the opportunity to get it. Is there a way to get rid of that (without getting Flash!)? ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2003, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-hell-do-you-disable-animations-in-internet-explorer/180037/10 "2003-06-07T14:55:58Z")
As I understand it, Macromedia Flash is a very nifty tool for making animations. How do you get rid of it? I dunno. ou can’t get at it through the controll panel, and programs like reg cleaner won’t remove it (IIRC). The program that is downloaded is quite small, and installs automatically. If you’re prompted, you only have to answer ‘yes’ and then you’re done. A lot of websites use Flash, because it makes for relatively nice animations/graphics, without putting to much strain on your internett access. So when you go to such a page, it’s default setting is to show the animation. If you don’t have Flash installed, it will prompt you. If you do have it installed, and it’s a nice place, most of the time, you’ll see a guage ‘loading…’ and maybe a button ‘skip intro’. The thing about Flash is that quite a few legit sites use it, and it’s basically the only way you can access them and get the full content. Off the top of my head, ‘The Matrix’ is such a site. That’s why I keep Flash and haven’t tried to get rid of it. Advertisers know this and hence you get those deeply annoying ads. For me, it’s a trade off. I have to click on yes or no, when going to a website, in case I want to have the Avtive-X content or not. Clicking ‘no’ often results in a message, saying something like: “The settings will not permit the browser to show all the contents…” blah, blah, blah, including an annoying chime. With many ads on a page, it might be four or five times I have to go through this. Also, as I understand it, Flash uses Avtive-X, which is an engine/software used in many programs. Removing Active-X will create havoc and is not rec. In short, we’re screwed. ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2003, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-hell-do-you-disable-animations-in-internet-explorer/180037/11 "2003-06-07T15:48:41Z")
Get the Proxomitron. It’ll strip out Flash, giving a link that says [flash] in case you want to click on it and load the Flash. And if it makes you feel any better, go beat up Flash Gordon. ---
**Author:** ![Number](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/number/32/242_2.png) [@Number](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Number)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2003, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-hell-do-you-disable-animations-in-internet-explorer/180037/12 "2003-06-07T16:02:31Z")
The Proxomitron includes a “Flash animation killer” feature. It replaces all Flash animations with links. If there’s one you do want to watch, just click the link. The program can also block cookies, banners, pop-up ads and other annoyances. You can configure its behavior for specific sites. It’s a great free tool. Normally it can be downloaded from [http://proxomitron.org](http://proxomitron.org), but the developer has temporarily (I hope) taken down the site because there were some serious bugs in version 4.5. Version 4.4 can be found elsewhere by googling. I can also email copies to anyone who wants it. Oh rats, **asterion** beat me to it. I can’t agree with that last suggestion though. It’s just not fair to take it out on Sam J. Jones. ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2003, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-hell-do-you-disable-animations-in-internet-explorer/180037/13 "2003-06-07T17:07:30Z")
I have just set Active-X to “prompt” and accept or deny depending on whether I want Flash files to play or not. ---
**Author:** ![Crusoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/49beb7/32.png) [@Crusoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crusoe)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2003, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-hell-do-you-disable-animations-in-internet-explorer/180037/14 "2003-06-08T11:06:29Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Number \* > **…Normally it can be downloaded from [http://proxomitron.org](http://proxomitron.org), but the developer has temporarily (I hope) taken down the site because there were some serious bugs in version 4.5…** The developer has abandoned work on it now. He received some fairly harsh – and unwarranted, for a free product – criticism for some of the features in the last version. I understand that he was quite upset by the vitriol and decided to abandon the site and the software permanently. ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2003, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-hell-do-you-disable-animations-in-internet-explorer/180037/15 "2003-06-08T14:38:27Z")
\>I have just set Active-X to “prompt” and accept or deny depending on whether I want Flash files to play or not. How do you do that? I don’t see any reference to Active-X in IE Tools \> Internet Options… ---
**Author:** ![Crusoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/49beb7/32.png) [@Crusoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crusoe)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2003, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-hell-do-you-disable-animations-in-internet-explorer/180037/16 "2003-06-08T14:42:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Napier \* > \*\*\>I have just set Active-X to “prompt” and accept or deny depending on whether I want Flash files to play or not. > > How do you do that? I don’t see any reference to Active-X in IE Tools \> Internet Options… \*\* In IE5.5 it’s under Tools \> Internet Options \> Security \> Custom Level. ---
**Author:** ![Number](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/number/32/242_2.png) [@Number](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Number)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2003, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-hell-do-you-disable-animations-in-internet-explorer/180037/17 "2003-06-08T15:32:45Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Crusoe \* > \*\*The developer has abandoned work on it now. He received some fairly harsh – and unwarranted, for a free product – criticism for some of the features in the last version. I understand that he was quite upset by the vitriol and decided to abandon the site and the software permanently. \*\* Well, that’s truly unfortunate. I hope he changes his mind. Maybe we can arrange to send him some autographed Shonen Knife gear. He always seemed pretty crazy about them. ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-the-hell-do-you-disable-animations-in-internet-explorer/180037/18 "2003-06-10T06:00:18Z")
\>In IE5.5 it’s under Tools \> Internet Options \> Security \> Custom Level. Crusoe, thanks! I restricted several things in here relating to ActiveX and it’s much better now! Like I used to have bugs crawling all over my eyes and now they’re gone! Well, that’s putting it pretty strongly, isn’t it? Still, this is much better - I wonder why everybody doesn’t do this right off the bat?