Google Chrome 66 is now live and will mute sites that autoplay content with sound

We’ve all come across those sites that load up and begin auto-playing a video at some obnoxiously loud volume. Over time, Google has been trying to tackle this with various Chrome updates. Back in January Google pushed out a Chrome update that allowed users to permanently mute certain websites, but the latest update will block autoplaying videos entirely in an effort to curb the practice.

This feature was originally, this was due to arrive as part of the Chrome 64 update in January, but was pushed back. Last month, the feature finally entered Chrome's beta channel. Now, the finalised Chrome 66 update is rolling out to all users. The added feature means that Chrome will only autoplay video content if the sound is muted by default. If not, then the content won’t play at all until a user specifically clicks on it.

Google is dubbing this as ‘unified autoplay’. This means users won’t need to encounter unnecessary noise or data usage while browsing and gives them greater control to only play the content they are actually interested in seeing or hearing.

Tackling annoying autoplay habits has been a focus for Google recently. In the past, Chrome has made it so that inactive tabs won't autoplay content. Google has also given users the ability to permanently mute specific websites in a past Chrome update.

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KitGuru Says: There are several sites that I use regularly that insist on autoplaying videos with sound, so I'm glad to see Google taking a stand against it. Do you guys often run into this problem?

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