You can soon permanently mute those annoying websites on Chrome

Why it matters to you

Tired of websites that auto-play sound with video? Mute those sites for good with Chrome.

There are few things worse than being accosted by a website that automatically plays videos with sound, disrupting your otherwise quiet web-surfing (or your quiet workplace). Luckily, Google Chrome appears to agree, and is now giving users the option to permanently mute sites by domain using the page info bubble.

As originally announced by Google’s François Beaufort, “The Chrome team is currently experimenting with a setting to mute/unmute a website directly from the Page Info bubble. This will give you more control about which website is allowed to throw sound at you automatically.”

In current versions of the experiment, the sound toggle option can be found in the page info popup, which can be accessed by clicking into the far left corner of the address bar. You’ll either be clicking on an info icon or a “Secure” label for HTTPS-enabled sites. As it stands, if you click on that corner, you’ll see various other settings like Flash, JavaScript, notifications, and more — and soon, you’ll also see a setting for sound.

If you decide you never want a certain site to play sound, you can disable sound permanently, and that particular domain will stay silent until you change your mind and reset the toggle button. If you’re curious to see how this would work, you can go ahead and check it out in the latest Canary build of Chrome on desktop. While the feature is off by default, you can turn it on with the –enable-features=SoundContentSetting switch, as Android Police reports.

But wait, you say — doesn’t a similar feature already exist in Chrome? While it’s true that you can mute tabs in the browser by right clicking on them, this isn’t a permanent fix. That is to say, if you close out of the tab or Chrome, the browser won’t remember your preferences (so really, what’s the point?). But with this new mute option, you can tell certain sites to shut up for good.

So if you’re tired of frantically trying to mute your computer or figure just which tab that godforsaken noise is coming from, this new Chrome feature could be a real game changer.