New Chrome Feature Silences Autoplay Videos

We recently discussed the changes coming to Google Chrome feature, and now those changes are finally rolling out to a browser near you. It can be really annoying, not only to you but to your neighbors in the office when suddenly a website loudly starts a video, and you are left scrambling to find which tab is the culprit. You are now able to permanently mute these sites.

When you happen to come across a web page that is always auto playing videos, muting the domain is incredibly easy, and will stay muted until you manually allow it, even if you have closed your browser and rebooted your computer. To mute the website is to right click on the tab that has the URL open, and select “mute site”. While this doesn’t necessarily help for sites that surprise you with some unexpected audio, it does help you with the sites that frequently auto play videos or video ads.

Also included in this release is the promised ad-blocker, or filter. While this new ad-blocker doesn’t actually block ads from being shown on websites, it does filter out ads that do not meet the Better Ads Standards.

According to Google:

The Better Ads Standards are the result of public consumer research by the Coalition for Better Ads, an industry group focused on improving users’ experience with online advertising. Over 40,000 internet users in North America and Europe participated in surveys where they were shown common ad experiences and asked to evaluate how intrusive the experiences were. The most intrusive ad experiences include prestitial ads (those full-page ads that block you from seeing the content on the page) and flashing animated ads. More details about the research and methodology can be found on the Coalition’s website.

These changes should lead to a much better web browsing experience for Google Chrome users, and appears to be a step in the right direction.