Animated pictures (GIF89a) like the one shown to the right can sometimes become annoying or unnecessary. If you want to disable animated GIFs in your Internet browser, this page gives you instructions for all the major browsers.

Disabling animated pictures in Google Chrome

At this time, there is no option for turning off animated GIFs in Google Chrome. Several people have developed extensions (add-ons) that sometimes accomplish the task of “pausing” the animated GIFs, but they do not turn off the animated images completely.

This page only covers disabling animated GIFs and not Flash or Java animations. Disabling those types of animation require disabling Flash and Java altogether.

  • Google Chrome

  • Firefox

  • Internet Explorer

  • How do I add extensions to the Google Chrome browser?

Disabling animated pictures in Firefox

In the Firefox address bar, type about:config. Click the “Accept the Risk and Continue” button. In the Search bar, type image, then find the entry for image.animation_mode in the search results. Double-click this option, set the value to none, and click the checkmark button. Close and restart Firefox for the setting change to take effect.

Disabling animated pictures in Internet Explorer

In the Internet Explorer menu bar, click Tools and then Options. In the Internet Options window that opens, click the Advanced tab, then scroll down about halfway and find the option for Play animations in webpages. Uncheck the box next to this option and click the OK button. Close and restart the browser for the setting change to take effect.

  • How to enable or disable hardware acceleration in a browser.
  • How to enable or disable JavaScript in a browser.
  • See our Gif89a or animated GIF definition for further information and related links.
  • Internet browser help and support.