Maybe it's AT&T's network, or maybe my phone (BB10), but the videos often don't load quickly enough for me to notice them until it's too late. My only hint is that the browser gets strangely unresponsive, and then 5 seconds later it pops over to full screen nonsense.
I've been known to just kill the browser app outright when that happens, as it's quicker than trying to get the video player to quit.
I freely admit that some of the trouble may be phone specific. Still, auto-play videos suck.
There are a couple popular news sites that seem to have moved to HTML 5 videos that don't need a flash plugin. I don't know how to block their videos on my phone. Turning off flash doesn't help, since it isn't involved.
The browser does have a switch between 'mobile' mode, which gives me a turn-of-the-century web browsing experience (not what I want), and 'desktop' mode, which usually (but not always) much better.
Unfortunately, there isn't a way to determine a site is sleazy prior to clicking on a link.
Oh, and give me a way to say "Never play a video under any circumstances, unless I explicitly say 'play this video.'" KTHXBYE.
I'm not on Verizon, nor am I on an unlimited plan. Still, I seem to hit my bandwidth cap more regularly these days. What seems to kill my utilization these days are websites with auto-play videos that I can't kill simply by blocking Flash.
What's really annoying is that the videos load in the background, and on a few occasions, have started playing after I've already locked the display and set my phone down. I only notice them because my phone starts making noise (when I don't have it set to 'silent'). It kills my battery and eats the bits I paid for on the assumption I'd be using them for things I actually wanted.
I honestly don't have a problem with throttling actual abusers. But, modern website design seems to make "abusers" out of more of us than there otherwise would be.
For the unlimited crowd, perhaps there should be tiers there, also. How about two levels? The lower tier would be "no overage fees" unlimited, meaning you don't get random dings for going over arbitrary caps, but you might get throttled occasionally. Rather than a hard cap, there's a soft limit. The upper tier would be "no limits, no throttling," meaning you could stream all the video and download all the torrents you want, but you pay a significantly higher fee for it. I'd happily sign up for the former service just to avoid the fees associated with the occasional data-heavy month. Folks who want to treat their phone as a cable-less cable modem can pay a few bucks more to avoid the throttle.
I think the problem currently is that 95%+ fall into the first group, and the remaining 5% or fewer really need a different class of service. The current "unlimited" label doesn't really make a sufficient distinction between the two.
Of course, the cynical would point out that such a tiering system would open itself to a whole new brand of marketing abuse...
Show me a city where the (wild and domestic) animal biomass approaches double-digit percentages of the human biomass.
One for the money,
Two for the show,
Three to get ready, and
Four to go!
not like the wild animals and fish don't piss and shit into our water
The wild animals don't tend to piss and shit birth control hormones and other still quite bioactive medications.
"Aww, if you make me cry anymore, you'll fog up my helmet." -- "Visionaries" cartoon