MANILA, Philippines – It’s considered one of the greatest annoyances in today’s web-browsing experience: videos that automatically play on a random browser tab, pumping out loud audio. It’s a rude, intrusive element that disturbs the user, and oftentimes forces the user to hunt down the offending tab and the offending video within the tab. 

Google is finally cracking down on this heinous crime with a new setting that will allow users to mute these videos that automatically play with the audio on. The setting is found on the “Page Info” bubble, which is that section on the URL box that says whether a site is “Secure” or shows an encircled “i” when it is not.

Users just need to turn the setting on, and the audio from auto-playing videos on that specific website is effectively muted. Users will be able to choose which websites can auto-play videos and which cannot. 

Google developer Francois Beaufort made the announcement about the currently in-testing feature in an online post, Sunday, August 26, Philippine time. Beaufort said that users may test the new feature on Google Chrome Canary – a new version of the browser that’s currently in development – including instructions on how to enable it.

But be warned: the current build of Canary is meant for developers and early adopters, and can be unstable and in Google’s words, “prone to breakage” at the moment. – Rappler.com