Setting to stop automatic play of videos on webpages?

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Is there a setting on my browser or on my laptop generally, which can disallow videos from automatically playing when I click on a website?

I use Firefox latest version (not sure what name version, but it's up to date).

The automatic video-play happens the most when I click on article links on the site MSN.com, UK version. I open an article on something in the news and nearly every page now also a related video which plays whether I want it to or not, even if it's not the "Video" section I'm clicking on, just the written articles.

I have Adblock Plus but these videos are not advertizements, they are part of the accompanying article, like there's a news report about diabetes, and there is a written article but further down the page there is also a video of just footage of someone getting their blood checked, or a reporter interviewing the person featured in the written article.

All news items online seem to be accompanied by a video too these days, often with identical content to the written article, but it's killing my data allowance.

The videos are often embedded way down the page, and a volume setting on the videos themselves that stays off means I don't even hear anything until it's too late, and I don't realize they're running until I scroll down. It's using up my data limitation and I got charged overage last month.

Is there a setting in Firefox that will disable these to run unless I choose to run them?

For Firefox:

I don't know if there are any add-ons which stop videos specifically.

However, I keep my browser completely locked down by blocking all scripts (including videos).

With the add-ons:
NoScript
RequestPolicy Continued

These scripts will definitely be good for your data allowance, since they would block things that would otherwise load without your permission (videos, images, etc). I mainly use them for security and privacy, as many websites load scripts from other sites without your awareness.

HOWEVER these add-ons may not be entirely easy to use. They will block everything, meaning that they will break the layout of webpages - since those pages depend on scripts to generate their layout. The add-ons let you whitelist sites though, so you'll have to spend some time doing that to get sites to load properly.

Personally I prefer this whitelist method, instead of letting websites load whatever they want. Some people might see this as an unnecessary chore though, I guess.

http://www.howtogeek.com/227669/how-to- ... b-browser/

To liminal and Lantylam, thank you both very much for this help, I will look into all things suggested and try out the about:config setting options.

Thanks to both of you.

Update:

I used about:config and changed autoplay enabled to False -- great result, no more auto play on videos embedded on pages!

Exactly what I wanted, very pleased.

However, there was then a video I did want to view, and when I clicked play, nothing happened. This was also on the MSN website of articles. Tried it with other videos linked on the same site, again no response when clicking play.

So I've solved the problem of stopping these playing without my consent, but now they also won't play even if I click play.

I tested out if this happens on other sites, so I went to Youtube to see if it does. Videos can still play on my command on YouTube however. It's just on MSN that even clicking on Play doesn't play them.

Is there anything that will maintain the disablement of autoplay but still allow me to play one if desired? This just seems to be on MSN.