@eclectech Back in the day, Flash was also used for 'rich web sites' that behave more like desktop applications with fancy animations. Microsoft tried to create an alternative with Silverlight ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Silverlight ). It ended within 5 years when HTML5 became popular.

@cstross I have also enabled "Always hide media" and unchecked "Auto-play animated GIFs" for precisely that reason. I don't need to have that stuff shoved in my face - which incidentally are mainly posts that also don't have a CW, nor proper hashtags so I cannot add a filter for it.