Google would no longer allow on Chrome the loading of sounds and videos in background tabs even if it was set on auto-play. User must click on a tab to load the video or streaming media file beginning Sept. 1.
In a Google+ post, Francois Beaufort, member of the Chrome team, said that Google first tried the change on Chrome Canary, a beta version of the Google browser, reports CNN. Canary is Google's testing ground for new features before the company releases it to the public.
Beaufort writes, "This means no more 'Where's that sound coming from?' moments when an ad for instance decides to auto-play in a tab you've specifically opened in the background." That feature is considered the most annoying Wed browsing experience.
Unless the user navigates to the tab, the video would not begin playing. However, if the user did that and then clicks on another tab, the video will continue to play in the background.
To address that problem that Google users have frequently complained of, in January 2014, Chrome displayed a speaker symbol on tabs that played sounds to inform users the source of the sound.
Several months ago, Chrome allowed the user to click the speaker button to quickly silence the noise, although users needed first to enable clicking by typing: "chrome://flags/#enable-tab-audio-muting" into their browsers and then clicking enable.
Fortune reports that the shooting of journalists Alison Parker an Adam Ward in Roanoke placed extra pressure on Google to address the problem. The shooter's Twitter feed of his shooting was automatically played on users who came across the feed, terrorizing people who were reading other sites.