Google Chrome
Google’s browser comes with a strong first line of defense: the ability to mute specific tabs. When a page starts playing sound, a little speaker icon will appear on that page’s tab, next to the “X” on the right. If you see that icon, right-click on the tab and choose Mute Site. This will immediately shut up the page and turn the noisy icon into a silent speaker with a line through it. Luckily, the most popular web browsers have settings that will help you silence the unwanted noise. And if they don’t do the trick, you can employ third-party add-ons to take control. Here’s how to restore peace and quiet in Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple’s Safari, and Microsoft Edge. You can also use this option as a preemptive strike, muting a page before it begins making noise. Once you do, any pages that share the same domain (such as popsci.com) will launch with the mute option turned on. To unmute, right-click a muted tab and choose Unmute Site.
Autoplay
To really get ahead of noisy intrusions, you’ll need to prevent videos from autoplaying. For several years (since version 64), Chrome has automatically disabled autoplay unless the video is muted or the user has expressed a specific interest in watching it. Despite this precaution, some autoplay videos might still sneak onto your screen. To block them, you’ll have to tweak Chrome’s settings. Unfortunately, there’s no specific setting for autoplay, but there is one that will stop all sites from playing sound. Click on the three dots in the upper right corner of your browser window, hit Settings, Privacy and security, Site Settings, and scroll to the bottom to find Additional content settings. Click that to expand the list and click on Sound. Finally, select the bubble next to Don’t allow sites to play sound. With this enabled, videos may still play, but they’ll be silent, and if you want to hear sound on, say, YouTube, you’ll have to right-click the tab and select Unmute Site. If you don’t want videos to play at all (maybe you’re worried about old embeds turning into content that’s not safe for work), you’ll have to download a third-party Chrome extension like AutoplayStopper or Disable HTML5.
Notifications
When a website sends you a notification, Chrome will display it on screen. This lets apps like Gmail, which run on the web, get in touch with you. While this is a good idea in theory, in practice it lets all sites bother you with interruptions and alerts. However, they will ask for your approval first.
Pop-ups
Persistent pop-up window are a pain. To suppress them, start by opening Chrome’s settings. Click Privacy and security, then Site Settings, followed by Pop-ups and redirects. Finally, click the bubble next to Don’t allow sites to send pop-ups or use redirects. As sites request to send you notifications, you can deny them individually. Or you can automatically deny all of them and opt out of these requests entirely: Go back into Chrome’s settings, find Privacy and security, open Site Settings, and click on Notifications. Then use the bubbles at the top of the page to generally set how sites can send notifications, and the options lower down to further customize how alerts work. Should some pop-ups still get through, enlist the help of a third-party extension. Two of the best in the business are Pop Up Blocker for Chrome and uBlocker. Both function similarly: they will let you browse sites without interruption and send you notifications when they squish pop-ups.
Mozilla Firefox
To silence pages in Firefox, find the tab playing audio (it will say Playing) and move your cursor over it to display an audio icon. Click on that icon once. Click a second time to allow audio once more. Alternatively, you can achieve the same result by right-clicking on the tab header and choosing Mute Tab.
Autoplay
That solution will stop tabs from surprising you with music and other unexpected sounds—but the videos generating the noise will continue to play. To shut down autoplaying videos as well, go to the main Firefox menu (three lines in the top right), click on Settings, Privacy & Security, and scroll down to Permissions. Find Autoplay and click the Settings button to its right. Finally, choose Block Audio and Video from the dropdown menu at the top of the dialog box. If you want to shut down these requests before they happen, Firefox lets you do that too. From the same notifications settings dialog window, just check the box at the bottom next to Block new requests asking to allow notifications.
Pop-ups
Firefox can shut down most pop-up windows for you. To block them, open the Firefox menu and click Settings, followed by Privacy & Security. Find the Permissions heading and tick the box marked Block pop-up windows. If sites manage to bypass Firefox’s built-in protection, download a third-party add-on to keep a lid on pop-ups. The straightforward Popup Blocker Ultimate should be able to deal with any pop-ups that Firefox misses, and Strict Pop-up Blocker, which is even simpler to use, won’t allow any kind of pop-up through. You can also set autoplay options for specific websites. Open a site in your browser, click the Safari menu, and choose Settings for This Website. A dialog box will appear, with a dropdown menu next to Auto-Play. Use this to choose between all videos playing automatically, no videos playing automatically, or only muted videos playing automatically.
Notifications
To display notifications and push alerts, websites must ask you for permission. You can turn them all down in one fell swoop: Open the Safari menu and choose Preferences, then Websites, and finally Notifications. Here, untick the box marked Allow websites to ask for permission to send notifications. In the same menu, Safari also lets you change the notification permissions for individual sites.
Pop-ups
Safari should automatically deal with most of the unwanted pop-up boxes that try to appear. To make sure pop-up blocking is active, open the Safari menu, choose Preferences, click Websites, find Pop-up Windows, and choose Block or Block and Notify from the dropdown menu in the bottom right. Because Safari doesn’t have as many extensions as Chrome and Firefox do, you’ll find fewer add-ons for dealing with the pop-ups that Safari misses. However, Adblock does work with Safari. In addition to blocking pop-ups, it will help you manage unwanted ads and other distractions—just remember to whitelist your favorite sites so they can still get ad revenue.
Microsoft Edge
Last but not least, in the browser built into Windows 10, an audio icon appears on the header of any tab playing sound. You can mute pages by either clicking this icon or right-clicking the tab and selecting the Mute tab menu option.
Pop-ups
If you’d like to back up Edge’s built-in pop-up defenses, you’re limited by the fact that young Edge doesn’t have many add-ons (you can browse through the existing ones here). One of the few you might consider is Adblock, which we mentioned in the Safari section. This can block any pop-ups that Edge can’t, and it will also stop other distracting ads—though you should allow sites you want to support through the filter.
