I don't want to totally disable Adobe flash video in my web browsers, but I would like to know how to manually stop an embedded flv video in a web page if I don't want it to play. I am finding more and more web pages with embedded videos without any user options to stop them. Some are incredibly annoying. I have just been trying to look at a TV station website, where all I want is the schedule information, but I can't look at it without also having all their promos and advertisements playing in an embedded video.

I use Internet Explorer 8 and Firefox 3.05. I can't find any options in either of them to stop an embedded video on a one-off basis. Is this possible? I would have thought it would be a pretty useful command.

(I apologise if this is a totally newbie question with a very simple and obvious answer.)

I run Windows XP Pro SP3.

Most Flash requires JavaScript being turned on as that is how the media code is delivered. Check it out using YouTube with JavaScript turned off.

I use Firefox with the add-on called NoScript. Many times when it says I need Flash player to play, it is because I have to allow JavaScript temporarily for the site. Never looked for anything like this for IE. You would have to go through the long steps of turning on/off scripting in IE. Maybe IE has a web developer plug-in that allows more control.

For sites that do not deliver the media code via JavaScript, turning JS off will not work. I see the answer given you here is to "Right click the flash object and uncheck Play".