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Firefox will mute autoplaying videos by default starting next month

Firefox will mute autoplaying videos by default starting next month

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Autoplaying video is the scourge of the internet, and Mozilla is going to do its part to help stomp it out in the upcoming Firefox 66, which will automatically mute any autoplaying video unless the user actively clicks the play button, via TechCrunch.

Users will be able to whitelist sites they’d like autoplay on

As detailed in the blog post announcing the new block, Mozilla is defining autoplaying video as “any playback that happens before the user has interacted with a page via a mouse click, printable key press, or touch event,” and notes that it’ll be blocked unless explicitly allowed by a user. Users will also be able to manually allow sites to autoplay, allowing sites like YouTube (where most people tend to want the video they’ve selected to automatically play upon loading) to continue to work as normal.

Firefox isn’t the first browser to try to stamp out autoplaying video; Google added a similar block last year in Chrome. Google’s iteration was a more personalized method that used browsing history to determine which sites users would want blocked, instead of the broader ban that Firefox is offering. And it’s not a complete panacea either — Firefox will only mute the offending sites, but videos will continue to automatically play and eat up your bandwidth even after the update.

The automatic block is set to roll out with the next release of Firefox, currently scheduled for March 19th.