Improving Autoplay in Chrome

For many, Chrome is more than a browser—it’s also a TV, phone, radio, and jukebox for the wide range of media experiences the web has to offer. And when you hit your favorite pump-up playlist, you want to get right to it instead of having to hit “play” every time.

At the same time, you probably don’t like it when you click on a link, land on a website, and it automatically plays sound that you weren’t expecting. In fact, in Chrome a significant number of autoplays are paused, muted, or have their tab closed within six seconds by people who don’t want them. That’s why we’re announcing a new policy on Chrome desktop to block unwanted autoplays.

Chrome does this by learning your preferences. If you don’t have browsing history, Chrome allows autoplay for over 1,000 sites where we see that the highest percentage of visitors play media with sound. As you browse the web, that list changes as Chrome learns and enables autoplay on sites where you play media with sound during most of your visits, and disables it on sites where you don’t. This way, Chrome gives you a personalized, predictable browsing experience.

As you teach Chrome, you may find that you need to click “play” every now and then, but overall the new policy blocks about half of unwanted autoplays, so you will have fewer surprises and less unwanted noise when you first arrive at a website. The policy is enabled in the latest version of Chrome—update today and try it out.