Device name: All mobile devices

From "Settings > About Chrome"
Application version: Latest Chrome
Operating system: Android

URLs (if applicable):
https://fast.rme.li/hidden-gif.php

Steps to reproduce:
(1) Be on 3G data
(2) Have a 100MB monthly cap
(3) Browse a website that embeds a 100MB gif
(4) At 20Mbps, your whole month data cap is wasted in just 40 seconds.

If a website embeds a video you can configure Chrome to stop autoplay and you dont waste bandwidth but if the same video is on a GIF it autoplays automatically and wastes much more bandwidth because GIFs are badly compressed.

I often visit forums with Chrome for Android on cellular data and any user can embed GIF files on the <IMG> tag as its the same as static media.

Its impossible for me to avoid wasting my data cap when someone embeds a couple of gifs, they even load before I scroll to actually see them.

This issue is made worst on 4G, the increase in speed causes more MBs wasted in less time.


My proposal:
Make an optional setting to disable GIFs from loading when on cellular data. This can just block GIFs from downloading or it could load the first frame and show a play button to manually download and play the gif.

If this issue is not solved then nothing is stopping someone from embeding 1GB GIFs on every website and wasting a whole month of 3G data that can cost a lot in India or Africa.

Thanks for attention.