Q: Is there a way to keep websites from automatically blaring their advertising videos?
A: It’s amazing how many websites think that irritating their visitors with an automatically played video is a good idea. Most people searching the web are looking for text; if they sought video, they’d use YouTube instead.
If you’re one of those publishers causing this irritation, you might want to rethink your strategy as research shows that it adds to cognitive load and distracts the user from their intended task, which can lead to them moving on to another resource.
The start of the video can often be delayed. That can make it hard to figure out which open tab is the source of the irritation, since most of us have many open all the time.
The quickest way to identify which tab is causing the racket is by looking for a small speaker icon on the tab, which indicates that sound is being generated by that site.
Chrome
You can’t stop the video from playing, but you can stop the sound from blaring by changing the setting.
On your Desktop, click on the three vertical dots in the upper right corner, then click on Settings -> Privacy and Security -> Site Settings and look for the “Content” section.
Scroll down and click on “Additional permissions,” then select “Sound” and change it from “Sites can play sound” to “Don’t allow sites to play sound.”
If there are websites that you want as exceptions, you can add them under “Customized behaviors.”
For Android mobile users, go to Settings, then look in the “Advanced” section for “Site settings”; scroll down to the “Content” section and tap “Sound.”
Tap the slider icon so that it says “Mute sites that play sound” and add site exceptions if you want them.
iOS users of the Chrome app can’t change a universal setting because of Apple’s imposed limitations on apps.
Safari
MacOS users using Safari can go to Settings, then click on Websites, and then on Autoplay in the list on the left.
This is where you can decide to block all or selected websites from automatically playing videos.
Edge
To make changes on Microsoft’s default browser, click on the three horizontal dots in the upper right corner, then Settings to open the menu.
Click on the three horizontal lines to the left of the word Settings, then click on “Cookies and Site permissions.” Scroll down and click on “Media Autoplay” to access a menu that allows you to limit or block all audio and video playback.
You can also add websites that are your chosen exceptions if you would like them to autoplay content.
Firefox
As with most of the other browsers, click on the three horizontal lines, then on ‘Settings’ and look for “Privacy & Security.” In the “Permissions” section, look for the “Settings” button to the right of “Autoplay.”
You can then choose to Block Audio only or Block Audio and Video, as well as add exceptions to this rule.
Opera
The Opera browser is based on Google’s Chromium open-source code, so the process will be the same as Chrome.
Ken Colburn is founder and CEO of Data Doctors Computer Services. Ask any tech question on Facebook or X.
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