There are few things more annoying than having multiple tabs open while you are surfing the web, only to be interrupted by autoplay videos.
Luckily, you can choose on which web sites you allow audio and on which you don’t.
Most of the major browsers have responded to the frustration of annoying ads by enabling a mute button on the top of specific tabs. But it can still be time-consuming finding which of the tabs has the audio, particularly if you have a lot of tabs open.
There are many third-party extensions that can stop the problem altogether by allowing you to specify which domain names can or can not play audio. For example, you would want to make sure you have audio enabled for Skype and YouTube, but you might not want it from your bank or eBay.
The best add-on extension will depend on what browser you are using.
If you are using Firefox, MuteLinks is probably the best option. MuteLinks makes use of Firefox’s built-in mute tab functionality to automatically silence sites based on their URL. You can set it up two ways. The first way is to enter all the web site URLs that you want muted onto a blacklist. The second way is a mute by default, which will automatically mute all websites, except those you add to the whitelist.
If you are using Chrome, MuteTabs by URL is an extension that performs a very similar service.
Sometimes, though, you will not know which URLs you want to listen to. You might then find having a particular URL muted a hassle. In that case, use Smart Tab Mute, which is available for both Firefox and Chrome. It allows all tabs other than the active tab to be muted.
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