“I just love it when websites automatically play videos with the sound turned on,” said no one ever. Fortunately Google’s Chrome web browser will soon make this annoyance a thing of the past.
Google’s François Beaufort on Friday announced that the Chrome team “is currently experimenting with a setting to mute/unmute a website directly from the Page Info bubble,” which is located to the left of the URL in the address bar.
“This will give you more control about which website is allowed to throw sound at you automatically,” Beaufort wrote in a Google+ post.
The feature is available as part of Google Chrome Canary, a version of the browser designed to give developers and early adopters access to the newest features before they’re available to the general public.
Keep in mind that you can already silence a site in Chrome by right-clicking the offending browser tab and selecting “Mute Tab.” The new option will let you permanently mute certain sites, so that the sound stays off every time you visit.
There’s no word as to when the feature might roll out for everyone, but we’re keeping our fingers crossed that it arrives soon.
Meanwhile, starting next year Chrome will automatically block some of the most annoying and intrusive internet advertisements, including those that automatically play audio or prevent you from viewing a web page, Google announced last month. Ideally, this would curb the rise of third-party blockers that remove all ads, not just those that are intrusive.