VidDefer defers WordPress video embeds to fix Core Web Vitals

Short summary

The author built VidDefer, a WordPress plugin that defers video player loading until user interaction to fix Core Web Vitals on video-heavy sites. Unoptimized embeds load hundreds of kilobytes of unused player code on page load, tanking performance on course platforms, real estate, and SaaS sites with multiple videos per page. VidDefer ships thumbnails initially and fetches players only on click, explicitly scoped to sites where video embeds are the actual bottleneck.

• •VidDefer defers player loading until interaction, shipping lightweight thumbnail images instead of full player code
• •Unoptimized video embeds load hundreds of kilobytes of unused player JavaScript on page load, harming Core Web Vitals scores
• •Plugin targets video-heavy sites (course platforms, real estate, SaaS) where videos are the performance problem, not a universal solution

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