There is nothing quite as startling as opening a news article or clicking a link in a new tab, only to be blasted by loud audio from an advertising video playing automatically in the background. While Mozilla Firefox blocks automatic video playback by default, some websites use clever code to bypass these restrictions and play audio anyway. If you frequently browse the web in quiet environments like libraries or offices, and you want absolute peace of mind that a website will never play sound without your explicit permission, you can strictly block all autoplaying audio.
How to Block Autoplaying Audio on Websites
You can configure strict media playback rules in the privacy settings.
- Open the Mozilla Firefox browser.
- Click the Application Menu button (the three horizontal lines) in the top-right corner.
- Select Settings from the drop-down menu.
- In the left-hand sidebar menu, click on Privacy & Security.
- Scroll down the page until you locate the Permissions section.
- Look for the row labelled Autoplay and click the Settings… button next to it.
- A new “Settings – Autoplay” window will pop up.
- Click the drop-down menu next to “Default for all websites”.
- Change the selection to Block Audio and Video (or “Block Audio” if you prefer to allow muted videos).
- Click the Save Changes button at the bottom right.
Firefox will immediately enforce this strict policy across the entire web. If a website attempts to play a video with sound when the page loads, Firefox will forcibly pause it. You will see a small icon in the address bar indicating that autoplay was blocked, and you will need to click the physical “Play” button on the video player itself to hear any audio.