Months back, Firefox announced that users are finally getting the option to block the video and audio that frequently begins playing automatically when you visit websites, something already offered on Apple’s Safari and Google’s Chrome browsers. Now Mozilla confirms in a blog post that the latest version of Mozilla’s popular web browser will ask users by default whether they want to allow a website to autoplay a video with sound or not.
Starting with Firefox 66, the new rule will apply to any website that plays audio without user interaction in advance, such as a user clicking a button. The audio autoplay ban will apply to both HTML5 audio and video elements used for media playback in modern browsers, meaning Firefox will block the sound coming from both ads and video players, the most common sources of such abuse.
On the user interface side, when Firefox 66 access a web page with auto-playing sound from an audio or video element, they will see a new icon in the URL bar that tells them that sound has been blocked on the page.
Automatic sound playback will not be blocked if users have granted access to a microphone or camera on specific pages, such as video conferencing. Once autoplay is blocked by Firefox, an icon should appear in the address bar that informs users.
The changes will be embedded in Firefox 66, which is scheduled to launch March 19 and will arrive alongside other features that should make its users’ lives a little easier.
