When I am watching a movie in the Videolan VLC Media Player, the mouse cursor hides automatically in 4-5 seconds and I can enjoy the movie without any annoying cursor on the screen. But when I watch videos on Dailymotion, Vimeo or other such video streaming sites, the mouse cursor stays on the top of the video even if it is being watched in the full screen mode. This is very frustrating specially when something important is happening in the video screen area and it is being obliterated by the mouse cursor. For example, in the following screenshot of I was trying to watch a college ice hockey practice video on Dailymotion but the mouse cursor blocked me from watching where the puck was.
If this situation sounds familiar to you, then you can use the freeware AutoHideMouseCursor program for hiding your mouse cursor automatically when your PC becomes idle. Your PC can become idle if it receives no input from keyboard and mouse for a specific period of time.
The AutoHideMouseCursor program is available as a portable application. You can download it from the SoftwareOK website. It comes both for the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows. Since it is portable application, you can download the ZIP archive, extract its contents to a folder and run the program executable from there.
The program window has a timer that counts down to 5 seconds by default. But you can change it to anything from 2 seconds to 100 seconds. When this timer runs out, it hides your mouse cursor. The cursor appears again if you move your mouse or use your keyboard.
Personally, I use this tool only when I am watching videos on Dailymotion or other video sites. But if you are going to run it all the time, then you can temporarily disable it by checking the checkbox labeled Disable, especially when you do not have the need to hide your cursor.
In the options, you can choose to hide the AutoHideMouseCursor window to the system tray or completely hide it from view when you close the window. If you want to exit the program, then you can press the Esc key on your keyboard.
Conclusion: The AutoHideMouseCursor can automatically hide your mouse cursor after a certain pre-specified period of PC inactivity. This is an ideal program to run when you are trying to enjoying videos on your computer without being annoyed by that small mouse cursor on your video screen.
You can download AutoHideMouseCursor from http://www.softwareok.com/?Download=AutoHideMouseCursor.