Mozilla’s new Firefox 66 browser update was released on Tuesday, and includes a gift for office workers everywhere: No more autoplaying videos.
The latest version of Firefox can detect when a video is playing with audio, and automatically mute it. Videos that play on mute will be allowed to continue to run. If someone wants to watch a video, along with listening to the audio, they can click the play button. Firefox also offers the option to add certain websites to a list of exceptions, or to turn blocking off if they really enjoy having videos suddenly play while they’re busy at work.
The new block autoplay feature will be gradually rolling out to users, according to the Firefox 66 release notes. Firefox users can look for an update in their browser, while people who would like to make the switch can download the free browser by visiting Firefox.com. Other updates include improved security notifications, the ability to search within multiple open tabs, and scroll anchoring. The latter is designed to make the scrolling experience less jarring, if there are slow-loading advertisements on a page.
Firefox 66 is just the latest release from the non-profit Mozilla Foundation. Last week, the non-profit released Mozilla Firefox Send, a free service that allows anyone to quickly share important files, along with the promise to destroy them after a certain number of downloads, or an expiration date, has been reached.
