One of the most annoying parts of the web is auto-playing videos and ads. Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and other browsers introduced new mechanisms over the last year that automatically blocks out these auto-playing media, and Firefox is finally joining in.
Starting with Firefox 66, the browser will automatically start blocking automatically playing audio and video. There is a slight annoyance, however — instead of completely blocking the playback, Firefox will simply mute whatever is auto-playing audio. This means if a site has auto-playing video, it will still eat up your data, which could be problematic if you are on a limited data plan or using mobile hotspot.
Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each Friday — and get free copies of Paul Thurrott's Windows 11 and Windows 10 Field Guides (normally $9.99) as a special welcome gift!
"*" indicates required fields
Firefox will also let users manually allow auto-playing sound on certain sites if they want to.
The company has outlined the technical details about the feature for web developers here. It plans to start rolling out the feature with Firefox 66 on March 19 across all platforms.
dontbe evil
<p>I'm gladly using this feature on Edge for motnhs</p>
dontbe evil
<blockquote><em><a href="#402800">In reply to Waethorn:</a></em></blockquote><p>me too … but I solved with Edge</p>