Well apparently, from what I got from the report, they were cautioning on days that end in a zero. Such was the day I had my issue. They're working fine now. They spoke of some hacker issues with days like the 10th, 20 & 30th. So maybe they're disabling for our protection. I kinda like it when companies care about their clients or users.
Ok, a "zero-day" exploit means something different...it means that people have had "zero-days warning", or in other words, the exploit is out "in the wild" and being actively used by hackers. (Typically, "white hat" hackers will exposee flaws, and then let companies know about them, with the assumption they will give them a certain amount of time, 90 or 180 days, to fix them before they make it known publicly, I guess to give the companies incentive to fix the flaw).
FYI, while I love Windows XP, the real problem is Adobe Flash, which has weekly bugs (more like daily bugs) that would allow a hacker to pretty much take over the computer. Flash is targeted, because it is on a LOT of computers, and it is very easy (apparently) to hack and gain control of a computer.
The solutions are:
1. Don't use Flash --> use HTML 5 to run videos (may be difficult if you are using an older computer)
2. Use Google Chrome to play Flash videon --> supposedly, Chrome has Flash "sandboxed" so that it can't take over your computer, but this has been disputed.
3. Do what you are currently doing, but be really, really careful. Not the most reassuring advice, but if Firefox will stop the video from automatically playing, then just play the videos *you* want to play, and make sure the videos are from legitimate and/or reputable sites (this may not be a 100% safeguard, but you will definitely have more problems if advertizing sites auto-play stuff; there is a lot of virus/hacking activity going on in advertisements, unfortunately).