Firefox to mute autoplaying videos by default

Autoplaying videos are already a menace for the internet users when it begins suddenly in the middle of nowhere causing embarrassment for the user when he around his colleagues or friends. Attempts are being made by Mozilla to cut them off with the upcoming Firefox 66 update. It will automatically mute any auto playing video unless the users actively click on the play button.

The company made a formal announcement in a blog post and said that Mozilla is defining autoplaying video as “any playback that happens before the user has interacted with a page via a mouse click, printable key press, or touch event”. The blog post has also mentioned that it will be blocked unless it is explicitly allowed by the users. The users of the browser will also be able to manually allow sites to autoplay, allowing sites like YouTube to continue work as normal.

YouTube is a place where many people tend to want the video that they have selected to automatically play upon loading. However, Firefox is not the first user to cut on the auto playing videos. The search engine giant Google had also added a similar update to its Chrome in 2018. But the Google’s version was more personalized as it used browsing history to determine which sites the users would want to block, instead of a broader ban that Firefox is offering.

The solution that Firefox is offering is not fool proof as it is just going to mute the offending sites and the videos will continue to automatically play and occupy the band width even after the update. Firefox is expected to release the automatic block feature with the next release of Firefox. The company has scheduled the next release on March 19, 2019. The new feature is expected to be like a convenience to the users who find the automatic videos as unnecessary.

Photo Credits: Engadget