There are few things more annoying than opening a new tab in Microsoft Edge to read a news article, only to be suddenly blasted with audio from a hidden video advertisement playing at the bottom of the page. Many modern websites use aggressive autoplay mechanics to force video content—and the associated advertisements—onto their users the moment the page finishes loading.
This behavior is not only disruptive in a quiet office environment, but it also consumes a massive amount of bandwidth, which can be detrimental if you are browsing on a metered cellular connection or a mobile hotspot.
You can configure Microsoft Edge to universally block all media from playing automatically across all websites.
How to Block Autoplay Media in Edge
You can strictly limit media playback in the Site Permissions menu.
- Open the Microsoft Edge browser.
- Click the three horizontal dots in the top-right corner.
- Select Settings from the drop-down menu.
- In the left-hand navigation sidebar, click on Cookies and site permissions.
- Scroll down the right pane until you find the “All permissions” section.
- Click on Media autoplay.
- You will see a drop-down menu labeled “Control if audio and video play automatically on sites.”
- Change the selection from “Allow” or “Limit” to Block.
Note: If you do not see the “Block” option, you may need to enable a developer flag first. Type edge://flags/#edge-autoplay-user-setting-block-option into the address bar, enable the flag, and restart the browser.
From this point forward, when you visit a website, videos will remain completely paused. You must explicitly hover over the video player and click the “Play” button to initiate playback.