Stop and Disable Web Pages Auto Refresh or Reload in Firefox

Some webmasters or bloggers like to have their web pages refresh or reload automatically after a period of time, either to increase the page views, or to increase the ads revenue that based on CPM model. The web pages can ask a web browser such as Firefox to automatically refresh a page after a given timeout by including the HTML element <meta http-equiv=”refresh”>, or instruct web servers to send a Refresh: HTTP header.

The automatically refresh web pages feature can be annoying and irritating, can be disorienting due to sudden replacement of content, and probably a waste of bandwidth although some frequently and constantly updated content does deserve to be able to refresh automatically. If you’re not the one who in favor of web pages automatic refresh, it’s possible to disable, block and prevent web pages from auto refreshing in Firefox.

How to Stop and Block Web Pages from Auto Refresh or Reload in Firefox

In Firefox, go to Tools -> Options -> Advanced -> General -> Accessibility section, and then tick the check box labeled as Warn me when web sites try to redirect or reload the page.

Checking the option is equivalent to setting accessibility.blockautorefresh preference setting in about:config to True.

Block Automatic Page Refresh in Firefox

When the Block Auto Refresh option is enabled (set to True), automatic page refreshing request is blocked and ignored, instead, Firefox will displaying a message indicating the refresh and allowing the user to manually refresh the page.

To re-enable automatic page refresh, just untick and unselect the check box for Warn me when web sites try to redirect or reload the page option, or set accessibility.blockautorefresh preference setting in about:config to False.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 27th, 2009 at 1:21 am and is filed under Web Browsers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

7 Responses to “Stop and Disable Web Pages Auto Refresh or Reload in Firefox”

  1. Fernando
    November 16th, 2009 18:20
    7

    Yes, this is very annoying and the suggestion given here do not work to all websites. I believe some of them uses javascript to reload the page and if you use a javascript blocker (like the great NoScript) you can see all content. We need a more specific tool to block this intrusive and annoying practice! And, as say WG Hubris, a white list will be nice too.

  2. marco
    November 8th, 2009 20:20
    6

    use RefreshBLocke plugin
    https://addons.mozilla.org/it/firefox/addon/992?src=api

  3. todd
    October 31st, 2009 06:38
    5

    i like this feature, but is there a way to “don’t show me this message again”? i’d rather not see the ‘firefox prevented…” message on EVERY web page…

  4. WG Hubris
    September 4th, 2009 00:25
    4

    Thanks. I was looking everywhere for this setting. Accessibility options? Really?

    Is there anyway to allow on a per site basis?

    Unfortunately, it isn’t just shifty bloggers that use this feature. A lot of my online banking and credit card sites seem to use it as well. Sometimes clicking “Allow” is good enough, but sometimes it isn’t fast enough and the site times out or boots you back to where you came from.

    Thanks for the tip.

    WG Hubris

  5. Toad
    August 29th, 2009 02:49
    3

    Like rider tiger, I also tried this hoping it would stop Google’s news page from auto refreshing, but it didn’t work – it still refreshes (usually when I’m reading a news blurb, and when page reloads that blurb is gone). I also tried turning off javascript to no avail. How irritating!

  6. rider tiger
    August 24th, 2009 18:00
    2

    I did that and some web pages will still refresh every few minutes, while I am in the middle of reading something. It is very irritating.

  7. Dave
    August 22nd, 2009 16:29
    1

    You can use Auto Refresh from refreshthis.com to automatically refresh a website

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