Google’s crusade to make the internet slightly less annoying continues in the next update for the Chrome browser as autoplay videos with sound will be blocked by default. Once you update to Chrome version 66 (the latest official build of the browser is version 65), Google says that autoplay media will only be allowed if it won’t play sound, if the user interacts with the site, or if the user “has previously shown an interest in media on the site.”
As Google points out in the changelog, the blocking of noisy autoplay videos was originally scheduled to arrive alongside version 64, which released back in January, but ended up being delayed. As Google explained at the time, these changes would help to unify the browsing experience on mobile and desktop devices.
But while the autoplay with sound adjustment is still in the works, Google did give users the option to mute sound from websites altogether in Chrome 64. When you right-click on a tab in your browser, you will see a “Mute site” button, which will completely silence a site so that you don’t have to worry about autoplay videos blowing your speakers out when you least expect them. It’s a useful temporary measure until Chrome 66 arrives.
Chrome updates occur automatically, so you won’t have to do anything to activate the feature. The changes are now appearing in the Beta channel release, which means that the rest of us will see the public version of the update next month. The internet is about to become significantly quieter for Chrome users.
