How would you cease youtube videos from downloading automatically?

Youtube is played on its own site. It isn't downloaded to your computer at all - you just view the videos on the youtube site, much like you are viewing the text here.

Jespah, perhaps you, as is the case with so many netizens, are unaware that Youtube down loads legions of miniature, virtual succubi onto your computer while you are watching those evil, evil videos.

They can also see you through your computer screen.

That explains who came into my house, ate all the ice cream, and voted Republican last year.

Guess you know you didn't have any chocolate syrup.

You guys made my morning. Thanks for the laugh.

Yeah, well, you helped yourselves to the mini marshmallows, I noticed.

Marshmellows? I thought them were jawbreakers. Family hairloom, were they?

I didn't get a chance to go shopping.

I'm so embarrassed!

Are you sure that the Youtube videos are still auto buffering when paused? That used to be the default but Google changed it awhile back when they switched to adaptive streaming. I just tried it (on both Chrome and Firefox) and the buffering only occurs while playing. If you change the quality of the video, buffering may occur on pause but that is apparently not the default.

You may want to try something like the Chrome Flashblock extension. This will block Flash from automatically loading on any site unless you click on the flash icon in the Flash content area or add the site to a white list of sites where Flash is allowed. While it doesn't do exactly what you want, it could help you use less bandwidth. There is a Firefox Flashblock add-on but I haven't tried it so can't vouch for it.