So when I first got started with Firefox I would see the annoying banner ads on some site like Hotmail, and would try to hit the Esc button to no avail. Firefox doesn't have a "disable animated gifs" button so I actually didn't use FF until I found out about Adblock.
Just use go to "about:config" then find "image.animation_mode" and change it's value to "none"...
if you want it back just change the value back to "normal".
change it to 'once' if you want to show it once...
dgszdg
" Hitting ESC will stop those annoying graphics from animating"
When animation is integrated in the design and is only very much in the background operating, so it is not like hey, animation is the emphasis of this design. I cannot see that one animated gif has the need of being stopeed that eagerly. But I have undoubtfully guess one is referring here to the zillion pop-ups and annoying smilies from the banner sites that have infested the internet since 1996 when itbecame that popular. For intropages, I dont mind a small animation if it is justified and integrated seemingly.