Photosensitivity Video Blocker

What it is:
------------------------------------------

This is a tool for photosensitive people (or people tired of overwhelming amounts of animation on the internet at large) to more safely browse the internet without traversing it like a minefield.

This extension finds any .gif, .png and .webp imagefiles on any webpage, determines if they are animated, and then replaces them with pre-paused playable versions. Additionally it attempts to pause and prevent video elements from automatic playback.

!!NOTICE!!
While we strive to block as much potentially disrupting content as possible, this product is not a perfect solution. Please exercise due caution when browsing the internet, if you are sensitive and could suffer harm or discomfort.
!!NOTICE!!


What it does:
------------------------------------------

The extension will be looking for images on all websites, and if it determines that it is animated, it will replace the image with a version the extension has created, that allows the animated image to be played as intended, but remains paused until the user clicks the "play" button now overlaid on top of the animation.

Additionally it will constantly scan for videos that are trying to play its content, and forcibly pause them. This also means that videos will need to be "started" several times before the script actually lets them play, which resolves some autoplay behavior, but does also force the user to have to click "play" a few extra times before the video will behave normally.
We understand that this is not ideal, but as far as tradeoffs go, we have decided that this minor inconvenience is worth it, as a lot of videos would not be able to be blocked otherwise.


So seriously, what it does:
------------------------------------------

To accurately describe what goes on "beneath the hood", first we must establish some definitions.

Javascript - A code language used for creating various functionalities on the websites.

Image elements - Image files can come in many different formats. The formats we are concerned with are the ".gif", ".png" and ".webp", as these are the most commonly used images that can be animated.
These images are displayed via something called " tags". The browser is made to simply display these, and - if animated - play their animation loop.
Javascript cannot interfere directly with this behavior.

Video elements - Video files also come in many different formats. We are not concerned with the particular format, as video elements are presented in something called a "