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Firefox To Block Auto-Playing Audio Starting March 2019 (zdnet.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Starting with Firefox 66 -- scheduled for release on March 19, 2019 -- Mozilla plans to block auto-playing audio on both desktop and mobile -- a feature it began to test on Nightly builds last year. 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 sound coming from both ads and video players, the most common sources of such abuse. Mozilla's move comes almost a year after Chrome took a similar decision to block all auto-playing sound by default with the release of Chrome 66 in April 2018. Microsoft similarly announced plans to block auto-playing sounds in Edge, but the feature never made it to production.

85 comments

  1. I don't want software making decisions for me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Oh wait, this one I do want...

  2. When do they start removing all the spyware? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I don't buy this "Mozilla has changed" BS until they actually start removing all the insanity they have packed their browser full with the last $many_years.

    1. Re: When do they start removing all the spyware? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Citation needed.

      And please don't post that article about them using google as the default search engine. Because that has notning to do with this.

    2. Re: When do they start removing all the spyware? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It depends on what browser you use. If it traps pop ups then it will probably be fine. If you have random add ins who knows? Might even be dangerous to load some pages

    3. Re: When do they start removing all the spyware? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They start sweating profusely, hiding behind their talking points and breathlessly pointing out how they have really done nothing wrong

  3. Video by jwhyche · · Score: 5, Informative

    What about video? That is just as bad, if not worse. An how about blocking the ability for a video to self extract its ass from a frame and chase my ass down the page.

    --
    I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
    1. Re:Video by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Try managing your javascript/assets old man. Don't just let every damn widget that wants to run in your face, do something about it.

    2. Re: Video by McCaskill · · Score: 1

      True. And imagine all the wasted bandwidth that WE pay for when these videos are preloading in the background...

    3. Re:Video by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is Slashdot, 2019.

    4. Re:Video by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Go to about:config and set media.autoplay.default to 1 to block all auto playback or to 2 if you want to enable/disable by domain.

    5. Re: Video by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Again, this is at least partly your fault. You're smart enough to know there are addons that selectively block/toggle javascript and content. Once set up for a particular site, taking 15-30 seconds, it's all set.

      Mozilla or any other browser isn't going to be able to make all these choices for everyone, because not everyone wants the same things. So your gripe should be reformed to - "stop disabling needed security add-ons"

      Whether intentional or unintentional as the result of constantly refactoring their backend leaving 3rd party dev shops unable to keep up, this is what makes their browser truly annoying and unusable in the long run.

      Anyone using these most modern browsers without these necessary layers is flying around naked. Autoplay of videos is probably the most trivial thing to disable of any of these 'default-on' issues. Others are much worse.

    6. Re:Video by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That cuts both ways, doesn't it.

    7. Re:Video by Crashmarik · · Score: 2

      There's actually a setting to block that in the current release of Firefox

      https://support.mozilla.org/en...

      It just stopped working properly a few releases ago.

    8. Re:Video by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Some video embeds make sense, but I once saw PC Gamer randomly embed a 90-minute long video podcast about some game. This would be perfectly fine if I had no data caps, but unfortunately I do.

    9. Re:Video by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      PC Gamer is bought/paid shilling faggot shit, find a better site. That's now your fault if it happens again.

    10. Re:Video by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The current behavior seems to be the muting of automatically starting videos. The bandwidth is still wasted and flaws in the media components exploited (unless the separate process is used, which is buggy right now for me). A better solution for the your video chase situation are add-ons like NoScript combined with an ad-blocker.

    11. Re:Video by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There's a new setting now.

      https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1238033

      The easy to find setting, with a fairly nonsensical value to "disable autoplay". Set media.autoplay.default to 1 to disable.

    12. Re:Video by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why would you even visit a website that has that stuff?
      Just don't ever visit that domain again after you ran into something like that once.

    13. Re:Video by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Go to about:config and set media.autoplay.default to 1 to block all auto playback or to 2 if you want to enable/disable by domain.

      How about making that setting actually work? I have had it set for a long time but I still have to install video blocking add-ons. Every few months, they stat autoplaying again and I'm on the search for a working plugin again.

    14. Re:Video by markdavis · · Score: 4, Informative

      >" What about video? That is just as bad, if not worse."

      You can already do this in Firefox (blocking autoplay of ALL regular video, regardless of muted or not). And you can do it in many versions, including the current. But it requires a setting in about:config (Firefox is the only browser I know of so far that allows blocking autoplay of muted video, and no addon/plugin is needed):

      media.autoplay.default=1
      media.autoplay.enabled.user-gestures-needed=false
      media.autoplay.allow-muted=false

      Although it will break some sites (I find in practice it is a rare thing, though). The Firefox UI currently includes no way to set the first two of the above, you must use about:config.

      Yes, there are some nasty ways around this that some bad sites could still use. To improve further, make sure to block the playing of animated GIF/PNG/WEBP, too (note there is no per-use control for this, unfortunately):

      image.animation_mode;once (if you want to play it once only, no looping) or
      image.animation_mode;none (never play it at all)

    15. Re:Video by Potor · · Score: 2

      No, AC is correct; those work. I set a few other things though as well:

      media.autoplay.ask-permission: true

      media.autoplay.block-webaudio: true

      media.autoplay.enabled.user-gestures-needed: true

    16. Re:Video by Luthair · · Score: 1

      Unfortunately this now includes what feels like 90% of major sites on the internet.

    17. Re:Video by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      I run with noscript and I block all of the ad networks. I can't remember the last time I saw an autoplaying video. I didn't even know that feature existed or was broken.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    18. Re:Video by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      An how about blocking the ability for a video to self extract its ass from a frame and chase my ass down the page.

      Doing so would break the layout system used by an incredible amount of the internet. So no. #wontfix

    19. Re:Video by tepples · · Score: 1

      Slashdot is the first site I know of that ran Flash ads, namely for Splunk services. Yet people still visit Slashdot.

  4. Suck it CNN by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    and all the other idiot sites who do this

    1. Re: Suck it CNN by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sorry. Sorry to let you know it happens differently. Sorry you are blind. Never again

    2. Re: Suck it CNN by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      Indeed. CNN is not fake news, just fucking annoying news.

  5. What about those Windows repair scams? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    You mean we aren't going to be able to hear the "Your computer has many virus on it. Call Windows Support immediately at 800-555-1212 or we will be forced to deactivate your Microsoft"? What a shame!

    1. Re:What about those Windows repair scams? by arkane1234 · · Score: 1

      I know... I was pulling my hair out for hours until I realized I'm not running anything Microsoft.
      Shew, what a relief!

      --
      -- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
  6. Re:Censorship by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Uninstall from life, moron.

  7. Big deal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They're making a big deal out of "features" like this. Disabling autoplay has been in about:config for years now and it's just a matter of them enabling that setting by default.

    At best it's an if-else statement

    CS101.
    How to write an if-else statement.

    What's next, spending time designing new Mozilla logos?

    Time to use a real browser, such as Palemoon/Waterfox

    1. Re: Big deal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ah well, even Palemoon has addins pre-installed. Remember the email plugin? I doubt it was the only example. Not that you teenagers care who is spying on you

    2. Re:Big deal by tepples · · Score: 2

      Disabling autoplay has been in about:config for years now

      Setting media.autoplay.default to 1 and media.autoplay.allow-muted to false in Firefox 65.0 did not block pure CSS motion JPEG or pure CSS motion PNG.

    3. Re:Big deal by Megane · · Score: 1

      I discovered this recently because I started using FF only for playing Twitch video (to keep it out of my regular browser for various reasons). I found out that the display screen idle time-out will cause even the currently active tab, with FF as the front window, to not be considered active, and when the stream I was waiting for starts, it does not play. I can see how this is perfectly sensible as a default, but fortunately there is an override for those times when it is not desirable behavior, or when the detection has undesirable false positives.

      --
      #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
  8. For The Love of God, Video Next! by RonVNX · · Score: 3

    Autoplay *anything* has to be stopped.

    1. Re:For The Love of God, Video Next! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just make it site-selective and smart enough to remember and not get tripped up on 3rd party domain issues... You DO want youtube to play next, you don't want local news to blast you with a forecast every time you load the main page.

      I'm surprised these browsers don't come with umatrix/etc similar management tool built in as an integral part of the browser by now. People who just "load it all" are getting screwed six ways to Sunday.

    2. Re:For The Love of God, Video Next! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Autoplay *anything* has to be stopped.

      I disagree.

      Autoplay *audio* should be stopped, the videos can play if they want.
      If a particular video is too annoying, just don't visit that domain ever again.
      Autoplay video can be really cool, especially full-page background videos, or smoke/effects as a top layer.
      I'm talking about websites/pages where it's about the atmosphere and not about trying to read a lot of text.
      Full-page videos aren't suitable for Wikipedia, but for an artist's website it can be really cool.

      How many websites that you actually must visit regularly have auto-playing videos?
      The only annoying auto-playing videos I can think of are the trailers at Metacritic.
      And, admittedly, not just because they have audio. The whole idea of always auto-playing trailers is insane.

      But disabling all auto-playing of videos, because of the few bad apples, I'm against it.
      They could make it an about:config setting for folks like you - if such a setting doesn't already exist.

    3. Re:For The Love of God, Video Next! by grumpy-cowboy · · Score: 2

      "especially full-page background videos, or smoke/effects as a top layer.". So I can send you my internet bill (bandwidth)? Yes we need an easy way to disable ALL audio/video if we want because it's MY bandwidth. MY computer. I will decide what I want to see and listen to. Not you. You need an example? Here is a site I don't have choice to use (my client use it for timesheets) : https://manitousolution.com/en... Why on earth they have to use a stupid video in the background?! They waste my bandwidth, useless distraction and add nothing to the goal of the site.

      --
      Will $CURRENT_YEAR be the year of the Linux Desktop?
    4. Re:For The Love of God, Video Next! by Luthair · · Score: 1

      By your logic isn't it their website? :p

    5. Re:For The Love of God, Video Next! by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      Well, no, it is on your computer via your network and infrastructure costs. Whilst it is on their computer it is theirs, but they send it to you and they should only send it to you via request and not attempt to force it's use via the nature of the software in use.

      I run a mod on Waterfox https://www.waterfoxproject.or... for this but it should be an end user choice, just like the position of the tab bar which put me right off firefox. The team have a horribly tendency to force their choices on end users.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    6. Re:For The Love of God, Video Next! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is their website. I don't want to see all the stuff they have there, so I pick and choose. I never pick video. Of course they can try to make this difficult, then I don't pick their website. There is no single site I absolutely need.

  9. VIDEO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Video block auto play!

    How dumb can it be? I go to a news page to read and not have an auto-play video take percentage points off of my mobile phone's monthly data allowance.

    Chrome and Firefox could do wonders by blocking excessive http requests by a single page. No more Yahoo making 212 http requests for one web page.

  10. Mozilla does something right for once. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Unfortunatey any Firefox thread gets full of complaints with how Mozilla failed its users and the usual "use Pale Moon" comments.

    1. Re: Mozilla does something right for once. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If they meant to be helpful they would stop sneaking stuff into extensions. After all, you never see this nervy behavior in regular applications

  11. FFS, people, do a little searchin'... by TigerPlish · · Score: 1

    I have autoplay for video and audio turned off in Firefox, and ever since they went to "quantum", this stuff actually works.

    1. In your address bar, put about:config.
    2. In about:config search, autoplay
    3. media.autoplay.default;1
    4. media.autoplay.enabled;false

    Enjoy your lack of autoplay, even in obnoxious sites like cnn and youtube. No extensions needed.

    --
    The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
    1. Re:FFS, people, do a little searchin'... by TypoNAM · · Score: 2

      Except those settings haven't worked since 63v because they decided to complicate autoplay configuration even further: https://support.mozilla.org/en...

      --
      This space is not for rent.
    2. Re:FFS, people, do a little searchin'... by TigerPlish · · Score: 1

      Except those settings haven't worked since 63v because they decided to complicate autoplay configuration even further: https://support.mozilla.org/en... [mozilla.org],

      What can I say.. no autoplay on any site I visit.

      --
      The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
  12. Re:I don't want software making decisions for me.. by jellomizer · · Score: 1

    Audio on PC's have always been problematic. At least on my old Amstrad 1512 it had a volume on the PC Speaker. But in general now with multi-tasking apps. I wish I could really control how audio works on them. Mute this App, Allow App to play if focused, Allow App to play on background.

    Almost how nVidia does this on Windows you can tell which app to use the more advanced card. Allow for performance Apps to run fast, and others to run slower, because that was good enough.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  13. Blocking silent video is a hard problem by tepples · · Score: 3, Informative

    Blocking automatic playback of audio will block automatic playback of video with audio. Blocking automatic playback of silent video is a much harder problem. Just blocking MP4, WebM, and GIF animations is not enough, as a site can provide fallbacks that use script or even pure CSS. Some Slashdot users claim to have used extensions to block video, but none of them seem to block all methods in my test suite.

    1. Re:Blocking silent video is a hard problem by Luthair · · Score: 1

      I don't think most people here would consider gifs or swapping images as video.

    2. Re:Blocking silent video is a hard problem by tepples · · Score: 1

      Even if you might not consider GIF or motion JPEG to be video, an ad network might. If an ad serving script detects that the browser is blocking MPEG-4 or WebM playback, it could seamlessly fall back to GIF or motion JPEG.

    3. Re:Blocking silent video is a hard problem by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Do many sites actually use the hard to block techniques in your test suite though? I note that the smallest one is 2.5x larger than the basic MP4 video file version, and that ratio increases exponentially with the length of the video. Seems like a lot of effort and bandwidth just to play back something that they know the user doesn't want to see.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    4. Re:Blocking silent video is a hard problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Most people don't know much about or understand the underlying technology; if it moves, it's video!

    5. Re:Blocking silent video is a hard problem by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      I don't think most people here would consider gifs or swapping images as video.

      You're right. Most people here would consider it far worse as it is a video consuming far more bandwidth and resources.

    6. Re:Blocking silent video is a hard problem by tepples · · Score: 1

      Do many sites actually use the hard to block techniques in your test suite though?

      I'm not aware that they do. But if use of video blocking functionality in browsers or browser extensions becomes more common, I imagine that they are likely to.

      Seems like a lot of effort and bandwidth just to play back something that they know the user doesn't want to see.

      The ad server uses cheap wired bandwidth, and its operator doesn't care that viewers are behind a more expensive cellular connection. Its operator cares only about impressions and how well those impressions are matched to interests inferred from surveiling each viewer's browsing history. Besides, the pure CSS JPEG filmstrip is 0.59 MB, or less than one part per million of the 1 TB/mo cap imposed by Xfinity Internet.

  14. Re: I don't want software making decisions for me. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yeah I can picture it. They could have fixed all this a long time ago and unfortunately for them they will permanently be losing users over it. Anyway, I missed the big game. Is there a replay somewhere?

  15. Re: I don't want software making decisions for me. by arkane1234 · · Score: 1

    and you kiss your mom with that mouth?

    --
    -- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
  16. Block more ads by AHuxley · · Score: 1

    Give the web page back to the user and the browser.

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  17. Would you subscribe to block ads? by tepples · · Score: 1

    Video ads are the only way that a lot of sites can keep from going behind a paywall.

    1. Re:Would you subscribe to block ads? by markdavis · · Score: 3, Insightful

      >"Video ads are the only way that a lot of sites can keep from going behind a paywall."

      As long as the user can choose to play them or not. Autoplay is usually a hostile assault on the user.

    2. Re:Would you subscribe to block ads? by grumpy-cowboy · · Score: 2

      Video ads is the way ensuring that I'll never visit the site again.

      --
      Will $CURRENT_YEAR be the year of the Linux Desktop?
    3. Re:Would you subscribe to block ads? by tepples · · Score: 1

      Then enjoy doing without your favorite webcomic as one webcomic host after another introduces video ads. Explosm.net, home of Cyanide & Happiness, already has them.

    4. Re:Would you subscribe to block ads? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh no! Something I never read will be unavailable to me, the horror of it all.

      You do realize that not everyone reads comics right? I would use a more relevant example in the future to make your point.

    5. Re:Would you subscribe to block ads? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Video-sound assault? No, not in an original fiction site ( mine ) where auto-sound elements are considered part of the dramatic content.

    6. Re:Would you subscribe to block ads? by dunkelfalke · · Score: 0

      And nothing of value was lost.

      --
      "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
  18. Wrong by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Chrome still allows this - it happens to continue to occur that websites can play LOUD obnoxious audio without user interaction in Chrome (usually trying to sell your "trading bitcoin FedEx's" wtf that is.

  19. 50 fact-checked FOX NEWS LIES in a row - enjoy! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    TRAITOR REPUBLICANS LOVE BEING LIED TO!

    1. "In July 2010 the government said small businesses -- 60 percent -- will lose their health care, 45 percent of big business and a large percentage of individual health." Sean Hannity, Nov. 11, 2013 False
    * * *
    2. "And President Obama has offered to pay out of his own pocket for the museum of Muslim culture out of his own pocket, yet it's the Republican National Committee who's paying for this." Anna Kooiman, Oct. 5, 2013 https://bit.ly/2W1wHzv
    * * *
    3. Labor union president Andy Stern is "the most frequent visitor" at the White House. Glenn Beck, Dec. 3, 2009 False
    * * *
    4. "Far more children died last year drowning in their bathtubs than were killed accidentally by guns." Tucker Carlson, Aug. 9, 2014 Pants on Fire
    * * *
    5. White House Political Director Patrick Gaspard once served as the "right-hand man" for Bertha Lewis, who heads up ACORN. Steve Doocy, Sept. 29, 2009 False
    * * *
    6. "Look at the debt that has been accumulated in the last two years. It's more debt under this president than all those other presidents combined."
    Sarah Palin, May 31, 2011 False
    * * *
    7. "There is no good data showing secondhand smoke kills people." John Stossel, Dec. 4, 2014 False
    * * *
    8. "Democrats are poised now to cause this largest tax increase in U.S. history." Sarah Palin, Aug. 1, 2010 Pants on Fire
    * * *
    9. "The insurance industry is actually run by mostly Democrats." Dana Perino, Oct. 31, 2013 False
    * * *
    10. The Obama administration "manipulated deportation data to make it appear that the Border Patrol was deporting more illegal immigrants than the Bush administration." Lou Dobbs, July 1, 2014 False
    * * *
    11. Some doctors say Ebola can be transmitted through the air by "a sneeze or some cough." George Will, Oct. 19, 2014 False
    * * *
    12. Says the Texas State Board of Education is considering eliminating references to Christmas and the Constitution in textbooks. Gretchen Carlson, March 10, 2010 Pants on Fire
    * * *
    13. Because of President Barack Obama’s failure to "push job creation," the black unemployment rate in Ferguson, Mo., is three times higher than the white unemployment rate. Lou Dobbs, Aug. 19, 2014 False
    * * *
    14. When White House communications director Anita Dunn said that Mao Tse-tung was "one of her favorite philosophers, only Fox News picked that up."
    Bill O’Reilly, Oct. 23, 2009 False
    * * *
    15. "The president of the United States will be taking a trip over to India that is expected to cost the taxpayers $200 million a day." Michele Bachmann, Nov. 3, 2010 False (Note: Bachmann’s claim was made on CNN, not Fox News but Glenn Beck made a similar claim on Fox)
    * * *
    16. "We researched to find out if anybody on Fox News had ever said you're going to jail if you don't buy health insurance. Nobody's ever said it." Bill O’Reilly, Oct. 27, 2010 Pants on Fire
    * * *
    17. "If you make more than $250,000 a year you only really take home about $125,000." Steve Doocy, July 11, 2012 False
    * * *
    18. A Census Bureau worker says he was told to skew information to bring the unemployment rate down "as we headed into an election season." Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Nov. 19, 2013 False
    * * *
    19. "Health care mandate will require imprisonment and fines for Americans who can’t afford to purchase insurance or pay hefty government penalties." Patients First, Sept. 21, 2009 Mostly False (Note: Fox hosts have said closely similar statements because of our research into Bill O’Reilly’s Pants on Fire claim -- No. 16 -- that no one on Fox News ever said it.)
    * * *
    20. "And finally tonight, although it pains me to say this, Jon Stewart? Comedy Central? He was right. Now on his program last night, he mentioned that we had played some incorrect video on this program last week while talking about the Republican health care rally on Capitol Hill. He was correct, we screwed up, we aired some video of a rally in September, along with a video from the

  20. "Play Videos and Continue Reading" button by tepples · · Score: 1

    Video ads are the only way that a lot of sites can keep from going behind a paywall.

    As long as the user can choose to play them or not.

    Consider a website that displays the headline and the first sentence, and the rest of the article loads once the user has made a gesture to activate a button labeled "Play Videos and Continue Reading". Would you accept a flow like that?

    1. Re:"Play Videos and Continue Reading" button by markdavis · · Score: 1

      >"Would you accept a flow like that?"

      Maybe. Generally, I find video/audio/animated ads unacceptable and would rather see fixed ads with click for more info.

    2. Re:"Play Videos and Continue Reading" button by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Consider a website that displays the headline and the first sentence, and the rest of the article loads once the user has made a gesture to activate a button labeled "Play Videos and Continue Reading". Would you accept a flow like that?

      No. I don't accept to be forced to see a video, so I wouldn't click the button. Online newspapers sometimes have videos among the written articles - I don't bother with those either. Even though these videos are news content, not ads. I don't have the attention span for video, I can read much faster than they can talk. Video is for watching bridges collapse and such, not for printable statements.

  21. Hate Auto On Audio and Video! by BrendaEM · · Score: 1

    Hate is such a strong word, yet needs a helping adverb, such as "FN hate."

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
  22. Welcome to 2010 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    enjoy your stay...

  23. I just mute speakers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Long before browsers decided to address this annoyance, I simply muted my speakers.

  24. What do you want!? by pigsycyberbully · · Score: 0

    I spend so much money on computers that I should be ashamed of myself. I am a grown man but if a relative or immediate family ask me how much that costs I pretend that I got it dirt cheap. I even quickly throw away the receipt. I promise myself not to do this any more in 2019! So now I try to budget and if I see something I like I do research on it.. I do not just purchase everything computer related randomly any more.

    On https://duckduckgo.com/ all review pages are from years ago! and the only thing modern about the webpages are the videos that play automatically... and i keep on having to customise adblocker to block them.. And then duckduckgo seems to want to give me Japanese websites which have backgrounds that flicker with a advertising video that flickers so much you have to look away from your monitor..

    I think I may be the only person who still uses the World Wide Web, everybody else is stuck on Facebook and YouTube. And now I have my suspicions that the Vivaldi web browser may be spying on me. All these software companies can never get enough of everybody's information. What do you want? https://youtu.be/zalndXdxriI

    https://www.chromium.org/

    https://vivaldi.net/

  25. Firefox blocked my audio several years ago by mea2214 · · Score: 2

    ... when they stopped support for ALSA. It's kind of a feature actually. I fire up Chrome if I need to hear something.

  26. Re:I don't want software making decisions for me.. by CaptQuark · · Score: 1

    All of my computer speakers have a volume control on the front of the right speaker, and my wireless keyboard has a volume and mute button. Most laptops also have a function key combination to raise/lower the volume and mute functions.

    ---

  27. It already works for me. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Since they require pulseaudio nowadays, I just have to keep the latter off my box (which I do anyway).

  28. Re:I don't want software making decisions for me.. by jellomizer · · Score: 1

    But you can not control which App is playing and when. The Volume control on the Amstrad was fine, because it was an DOS based 8086 CPU with 512k of RAM, it will only run one app at once.

    However we now have many apps running at once, and they call could be making noises. So the volume control is less useful. Because some noises we want to keep and others we want to toss.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  29. Re:I don't want software making decisions for me.. by f3rret · · Score: 1

    Pretty sure the built-in audio mixer in Win10 lets you control volume per app.

    --
    Admit nothing. Deny Everything. Make Counter-accusations.
  30. Thanks FireFox by LifesABeach · · Score: 1

    This enhancement is appreciated.

  31. Safari did it in 2017 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In September, 2017, Apple released Safari version 11.

    Among the features was the ability to block (on a site-by-site basis if desired) AutoPlay audio and video.

    I believe that makes it the first major web browser to implement that feature.

  32. Interesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No audio ever autoplays on my firefox, no idea why (maybe it's adblockers?) I thought that was how it was for everyone.