How to Stop Autoplay Videos in Chrome, Firefox and Edge

Autoplay videos are one of the most irritating things on the internet. Often, some sites play these autoplay videos with full sound blasting our ears as soon as we land on the webpage. Thankfully, modern browsers have some effective methods to block these autoplay videos. Here’s how you can stop autoplay videos in browsers like Chrome, Firefox, and Edge.

The most common culprits of autoplay videos are the new websites. For some reason, these news websites automatically play videos about interviews and/or article topics without user permission or intervention. Add to that, there will be no settings whatsoever to block or stop these videos. Not only this behavior is annoying but the autoplay videos consume a lot of data. This may not be a problem if you are on a broadband or Wi-Fi connection. However, when using mobile data, it will quickly become expensive.

If you consume a lot of news via these websites, then you might want to consider blocking autoplay videos on news websites.

Jump to:

• Chrome
• Firefox
• Edge

Stop Autoplay Videos in Chrome

Chrome provides easy options to disable autoplay videos. However, those options are not available in the traditional settings page. Rather, you need to access the autoplay settings in Chrome via the Flags page.

Note: In latest versions of Chrome, Google removed the AutoPlay Policy flag.

1. Open the Chrome browser.
2. Type chrome://flags and press Enter to open the Flags page.
3. Here, search for “Autoplay policy“.
4. From the drop-down menu set Autoplay Policy to “Document user activation is required“.
   
5. Click on the “Relaunch Now” button to restart the Chrome browser and apply the flag.
   

Chrome is still working on blocking the autoplay stuff and there is no clear cut way to outright disable them. However, with the above setting, you are forcing Chrome to stop autoplay videos on background pages. Those videos will only play when you are actively interacting with the web page.

If you want to, you can use extensions like Video Autoplay Blocker or HTML5 Autoplay Blocker. However, these extensions are not that reliable, at least for me, and may even block legitimate sites like YouTube.

Block Autoplay Videos in Firefox

Just like Google Chrome, Firefox also offers advanced options to block autoplay videos. All you have to do is set a flag.

1. Open the Firefox browser.
2. In the browser, type about:config in the address and press Enter to open the config page.
3. If you see a warning message, click on the “I accept the risk” button. Don’t worry, we are not going to make any destructive changes.
   
4. Type “media.autoplay.default” in the search bar.
   
5. Double-click on the “media.autoplay.default” flag and enter one of the following values.
   • 1 = Block all autoplay videos
   • 2 = Let the browser ask your permission to play autoplay videos

   

6. Click on the “Ok” button to save changes.
7. Restart the browser.

Disable Autoplay Videos in Edge

Compared to Chrome and Firefox, Edge is much easier to configure for blocking autoplay videos.

1. Open the Edge browser.
2. Click on the menu icon appearing on the top right corner and select the “Settings” option.
   
3. Got to the “Advanced” tab.
4. One the right panel, select “Block” from the Media Audioplay section.
   
5. Restart the browser to apply the settings.

That is all.

From now on the autoplay videos are blocked in your browser.