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Latest version of Firefox changed about:config autoplay settings again?

  • 3 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 26 views
  • Last reply by cor-el

ninnyjams
ninnyjams
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A few months ago Firefox updated and autoplay settings were changed around. It took awhile of searching, but certain things in about:config had to be disabled to make it so videos didn't autoplay. After the latest update, videos are auto-playing again.

1. My settings did not revert, they are still the same. 2. The in-menu setting of disallowing sound does nothing, videos are autoplaying with sound on multiple websites.

Does anybody have a fix? This is getting ridiculous how much this keeps changing. I do not want videos, muted or otherwise, to ever autoplay in my browser. Can anyone help me with the autoplay settings? It seems like there are a bunch more in about:config now and I don't know what any of them do.

A few months ago Firefox updated and autoplay settings were changed around. It took awhile of searching, but certain things in about:config had to be disabled to make it so videos didn't autoplay. After the latest update, videos are auto-playing again. 1. My settings did not revert, they are still the same. 2. The in-menu setting of disallowing sound does nothing, videos are autoplaying with sound on multiple websites. Does anybody have a fix? This is getting ridiculous how much this keeps changing. I do not want videos, muted or otherwise, to ever autoplay in my browser. Can anyone help me with the autoplay settings? It seems like there are a bunch more in about:config now and I don't know what any of them do.

All Replies (3)

cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
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What Firefox settings in about:config did you previously make?

You can look at these prefs on the about:config page to see if these values work for you.

  • media.autoplay.default = 1 [0=Allowed, 1=Blocked, 2=Prompt]
  • media.autoplay.allow-muted = false
  • media.autoplay.enabled.user-gestures-needed = false

For user-gestures-needed you can try false and true to see what works for you.

You can look at this extension.

You can open the about:config page via the location/address bar. You can accept the warning and click "I accept the risk!" to continue.

ninnyjams
ninnyjams Question owner
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Hello! Thank you for the response. I'm familiar with that extension but it always seemed spotty, I stopped using it when Firefox enabled these features in about:Config.

That said, this is what my about:config currently looks like (Filtered by "autoplay") - https://imgur.com/a/lYFPQX1 - and I still get auto-playing videos on specific sites (ESPN, SportingNews come to mind), but it's blocked on YouTube and others. I'm not sure why some of them are slipping through the cracks (I've checked and I have no exceptions set).

I have also recently refreshed Firefox and started from scratch to see if that would help, and it did not.

Any ideas? Again, thanks for taking the time to respond. I know a lot of people ask about this stuff but it seems like the settings have changed a few times

cor-el
cor-el
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I see the block auto-play icon in the location bar meaning that Firefox is detecting media on this web page and I see the shield that Content Blocking is blocking a lot of content.

No auto-play icon present on ESPN, but I'm not seeing any media reported in the Network Monitor and all media seem to show a play button that probably means that only a preview image is shown.

Do you have extensions that could interfere and override Content Blocking?