Firefox 66 Blocks Autoplaying Content by Default

Firefox 66 arrives soon, and Mozilla is offering a tantalizing reason to upgrade: It blocks all autoplaying audio and video content.

“Ever open a new page and all of a sudden get bombarded with noise?” Mozilla’s Nick Nguyen writes in a new post to the firm’s corporate blog. “Well, worry no more. Starting next week, we will be rolling out the peace that silence brings with our latest feature, block autoplay.”

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The ability to block autoplaying web content arrives with the release of Firefox 66 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android, along with other great new features like smoother scrolling, improved search, and extensions, and, on Windows 10, WebAuthn support for Windows Hello. Mozilla has also improved Firefox’s security warnings to make them clearer.

“When you’re on the web, you’re trying to get stuff done, and therefore online annoyances are just annoyances,” Mr. Nguyen continues. “Whether it’s autoplaying videos, page jumps, or finding a topic within all your multiple tabs, Firefox can help.”

You can find the latest release of Firefox on the Firefox website.

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Conversation 9 comments

  • waethorn

    19 March, 2019 - 1:29 pm

    <p>Great! No more unrelated auto-playing ZDnet trash.</p>

  • Oasis

    Premium Member
    19 March, 2019 - 2:56 pm

    <p>Got it this morning on Windows 7…</p>

  • dontbe evil

    19 March, 2019 - 2:57 pm

    <p>I had this on Edge for ages</p>

  • Pbike908

    19 March, 2019 - 6:16 pm

    <p>Looking forward to this! FireFox is my default windows browser. </p>

  • Daekar

    19 March, 2019 - 6:21 pm

    <p>Glad to hear it. Does Chrome eliminate these annoyances too?</p>

    • ZeroPageX

      20 March, 2019 - 1:57 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#413829">In reply to Daekar:</a></em></blockquote><p>No, you need an extension for Chrome. I use Autoplay Stopper. It works for most sites I care about. Google should really step up and build it in. They need to force web sites to do the right thing and not break when it's blocked.</p><p><br></p>

  • ivarh

    Premium Member
    19 March, 2019 - 8:17 pm

    <p>Welcome, Us safari users have enjoyed this bliss for a few years already. </p>

  • wocowboy

    Premium Member
    20 March, 2019 - 7:17 am

    <p>There are still many things these content blockers and pop-up blockers seem to be totally unable to do away with. Such as the VERY annoying pop-ups on almost every site on the internet that show up a couple seconds after the site loads and ask you to subscribe to the site owner's newsletter. Isn't this a pop-up window that supposedly can be blocked? Evidently not. </p><p><br></p><p>Also, this new video blocker does not seem to be working on all sites. C-Net and Huffington Post videos still play automatically and the option switch to block them is not available in the preferences for either site.</p>

  • BMcDonald

    20 March, 2019 - 2:10 pm

    <p>Will take this seriously if it actually works on CNN. That is the ultimate test bed.</p><p><br></p>

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