By Damilola Emmanuel, who makes Tabmoat. Updated .
Clicking Play opens an ad because the site has put an ad script on the Play button, or an invisible layer on top of the player. Your first click opens the ad, and the video starts on a later click. To stop it, use an ad blocker that refuses new tabs from a video player’s buttons. That’s one of the rules Tabmoat follows.
What happens when you press Play?
On the sites I tested, the ad script on the player worked in one or more of these ways:
- It lays a transparent layer over the video, the full size of the player. You can’t see it, but it gets your click.
- It hooks the player’s own buttons. Play, Mute and Seek all count. On one movie site I tested, pressing Mute opened a crypto exchange’s website.
- It keeps trying. When an ad tab fails to open, the script tries on your next click, and the player’s buttons stop responding while it does. That’s why it feels like the button “doesn’t work”.
Because each tab opens straight after a real click, Chrome’s pop-up blocker allows it.
How do I watch without the ad tabs?
Tabmoat works from one rule here: a video player’s buttons have no business opening another website. When you press a button inside a player and something tries to open a tab to another site, Tabmoat stops it and the click goes to the video.
It also handles the invisible layer. When you click on a layer that leads off the site, Tabmoat drops the layer and sends the click to whatever is under it, so you don’t have to click twice.
| Without Tabmoat | With Tabmoat |
|---|---|
| First click opens an ad tab | First click usually plays the video |
| Mute or Seek can open another ad | Player buttons only control the player |
| You close tabs and click again | Far fewer tabs to close, usually none |
What if the video still won’t play?
Some of these sites never had a real video. One I looked at showed a two-hour running time for what was really a 34-second clip, then stopped it and asked me to sign up to keep watching. I wrote about that trick in the “create a free account to keep watching” guide.
If the site does have a video and it won’t start with Tabmoat on, click the Tabmoat button in your toolbar, turn the switch off for that site, and send me the page address at support@middledott.com so I can fix it.
Questions people ask
Is it the site or my browser? It’s the site. The ad script is part of the page, so switching browsers doesn’t get rid of it.
Can I just use a different server on the player? Sometimes a different server has fewer ads, but in my testing most of them came with ad scripts of their own.
Does this work on YouTube? YouTube’s ads play inside the video rather than in new tabs, so this trick doesn’t apply there. Tabmoat has a separate set of rules for YouTube’s video ads.