In this post, we will see how to control video and audio playback on Google Chrome. Controlling audio and video playback on the web browser is quintessential since it is often the gateway to accessing media via Netflix and Hulu. Nowadays, we see enormous audio and video contents online that play automatically once the full site loads.These audio and video contents will autoplay without any action from the user. Moreover, autoplay media can be a nuisance as it may break your concentration or focus on a current task. Many users have complained autoplay feature as quite a distracting element, and also it is said to slow down the loading time of your web page.
While many users find autoplay a nuisance, there is a time wherein autoplay can be beneficial too, when you load some sites. Say, you want to check on news articles from a local news website. Your engagement with media content is high in this case. That being said, the probability of you playing a video allowed on article pages is high. In this case, configuring the site to autoplay video will save you time. The same thing applies to you watching a YouTube channel, and autoplay is quite beneficial in this case.
Muting the sound of autoplay media is quite a good way while browsing, as you tend to ignore the videos that play silently and automatically. The reverse case of auto-playing media with sound, in this case, can be distracting. It is worth mentioning that Google now gives the user to have greater control over the behavior of browser autoplay through Autoplay policies. The browsers are moving towards stricter autoplay policies to enhance the user experience and reduce data consumption in the constrained network environment. Additionally, Autoplay policy provides the user full control over the playback and is available for Chrome on Windows desktop Chrome OS, and Android.
Autoplay policies are simple to apply, and the following steps will guide you to configure the setting.
Control Audio & Video Playback on Chrome
Go to Chrome://flags//autoplay-policy in the Chrome browser.
Click on the tab next to Autoplay policy. This will show a list of available options from the drop-down menu.
Following are the list of options available that you can choose:
- Default – Selecting this option will enable the autoplay.
- No user gesture is required – In this case, Users do not need to interact with the document to autoplay the video or audio.
- User gesture is required for cross-origin iFrames – This option is same as “ No user gesture is required “ but it needs user interaction to autoplay the media content from other websites.
- Document user activation is required – In this case, to autoplay the media content, users need to interact with the document first. The audio or video will start to play as soon as you visit the web page.
Once you select the appropriate options as per your needs, restart the Chrome Browser.
That’s all.
Read next: Stop Videos from playing automatically on websites.
