# Looking for a Firefox extension
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-firefox-extension/465580
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [September 28, 2008, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-firefox-extension/465580 "2008-09-28T14:46:33Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Red\_Stilettos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Stilettos)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2008, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-firefox-extension/465580/1 "2008-09-28T14:46:33Z")
Recently, I have started reading another message board and, though the content is useful, many of the members are obsessed with animated smilies. Some posts are just smilies jumping around doing something inane. Some of the posters even have them in their signatures! I can’t stand it anymore.
So, I’m looking for a Firefox extension that disables those damn things. It must exist, but I can’t find it by searching the extensions. Has anyone found a way to get rid of those beasts? If it makes all smilies go away, I’d be okay with that too (even though I use them here :D).
I tried to search for this, but search isn’t working for me for some reason (and I’ve reported it in the ATMB thread).
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### Author:  [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2008, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-firefox-extension/465580/2 "2008-09-28T14:57:26Z")
Animated smiles are simply GIF-87 files; you can control their behavior by following [these](http://kb.mozillazine.org/Firefox_:_Tips_:_Animated_Images) instructions. Smilies in general are just images, usually GIF or JPEG. I know of no method of easily and accurately distinguishing smilie images from other images. You could conceivably block small images, say less than 15 x 15 pixels but that might very well take out other things, like the forum icons which tell you what threads you’ve read, or buttons like the Report Post button, all of which are also image files.
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### Author:  [@Nametag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nametag)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2008, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-firefox-extension/465580/3 "2008-09-28T15:01:44Z")
The escape key will stop all animations. They’ll still move to start with, though. To stop that, you’ll have to alter the configuration file - WARNING: don’t screw around with this!
type “about:config” into the browser navigation bar
go to the line that says “image.animation\_mode” and double click
enter “none”
You can also use Adblock to selectively kill animations from flash.
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### Author:  [@Red\_Stilettos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Stilettos)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2008, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-firefox-extension/465580/4 "2008-09-28T15:06:32Z")
Awesome! Thanks so much. I had no idea that Esc would stop those things. You learn something new everyday. I think I’ll leave it at that for now, but I may venture into the config files if it gets too bad.
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### Author:  [@KlondikeGeoff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KlondikeGeoff)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2008, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-firefox-extension/465580/5 "2008-09-28T15:32:43Z")
This is totally weird! As soon as I read your post about using the Esc key, I rushed to one forum in which the readers are obsessed with filling each post with these damned things…
Your information was evidently so powerful, that it has shut them all down. 😃 They were there in abundance, but none were moving. Figure that out.
I hit Esc just to see if it would turn them back on, but no, they remain static.
I recently upgraded to Firefox 3.0.2. Do you think they may have incorporated something in this vesion that kills the beasts?
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### Author:  [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2008, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-firefox-extension/465580/6 "2008-09-28T15:36:24Z")
> [@KlondikeGeoff](#):
>
> I recently upgraded to Firefox 3.0.2. Do you think they may have incorporated something in this vesion that kills the beasts?
No, it’s just standard functionality. If you reload the page, by hitting F5, they’ll be right back to the way they were.
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### Author:  [@Fubaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fubaya)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2008, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-firefox-extension/465580/7 "2008-09-28T17:19:54Z")
With adblock, you can simply right click and block each one so they will never show up