Videos on MissAV pausing during playback is not an isolated case or an accident. This is deliberately designed by the website owners. This design is not limited to this site; there are many other examples, such as Coursera, the world-famous programming video course platform, where videos automatically pause when switching windows or tabs. edX’s MOOC course videos pause when switching tabs, requiring manual resumption. Canvas LMS’s built-in videos also pause when the tab loses focus. Global education video platforms like Kaltura and Yuja also experience video playback pausing when browser tabs are switched.
Website designers implement such features for different purposes. For example, MissAV likely does this to make users watch more ads—videos pause whenever the user leaves the current page, which increases ad revenue but significantly worsens the user experience. Educational video sites usually claim it’s to prevent learners from missing content, so videos pause when the user leaves the page.
Regardless of the designers’ reasons, this is a very poor experience for users. Most people multitask while watching videos, handling other tasks simultaneously.
When discussing this issue, especially among those with programming knowledge, the common suggestion is to open the browser console, go to the “Elements” tab, find the “Event Listeners,” and remove the “blur” or “mouse”-related listeners. This often works, but the downside is that refreshing the page or playing the next video on the same site requires repeating the process.
Moreover, many sites now recognize this workaround and use more robust detection methods, such as periodically checking and re-adding listeners. If you remove them, the site will automatically restore them, rendering your changes ineffective.
After testing many methods, I recommend a super simple tool: a browser extension specifically designed to prevent automatic pausing on most websites. It uses a combination of mechanisms to stop videos from pausing in various scenarios, mainly addressing:
- Switching tabs
- Minimizing the browser window
- Mouse leaving the page or screen
- Pausing in Picture-in-Picture (PiP) mode
- Window losing focus
- Multi-monitor setups (secondary screen)
- Websites detecting pauses via JavaScript (e.g., blur, visibilitychange events)
- Pauses triggered by timers or anti-idle detection
The extension is called NoPause Playback. It is paid (with usage limits per site), but it offers a free trial quota for newcomers. It’s extremely useful—once you start using it, it’s hard to go without. The usage is also very simple:
- Go to the Chrome Web Store (or Microsoft Edge Add-ons store) and search for “NoPause Playback.” It’s available on both Chrome and Edge stores. It also works on Brave browser since it supports Chrome extensions.
- Click the extension icon, enter the URL of the site where you want to prevent pausing, and click “Add.”
- Done! From then on, videos on the added sites won’t auto-pause due to the above reasons. (Manual pausing via the player still works, of course.)
With this extension, you can multitask effortlessly—watch videos while working, gaming, or doing anything else. It’s awesome!
