Web sites use different ways of embedding media content in their web pages. They can use the popular Flash player to put video or audio content in their pages. They can also use the newer HTML5 <video> and <audio> tags to put the media content in the pages. But some of the sites have direct file links to the video and audio files that start playing in the in-built Firefox media player if you click on them. For example, if you click on a link that leads to a file with MP3 extension on a website, then it will start playing in the Firefox’s own minimalistic media player instead of giving you a download prompt.
If you do not want the media files to be automatically played as soon as you click on their links, then you can disable automatic media playing in Mozilla Firefox. Here is how:
- Open Firefox browser and type about:config in the location bar. You will be shown a warning, but you can proceed by clicking on the “I’ll be careful, I promise” button.
- In the search field type media.auto to look for the setting we want to modify.
- Double-click on the media.autoplay.enabled setting to change its value from true to false.
- That’s it. Now Firefox will no longer auto-play the media content that is linked directly in web sites. But this setting does not apply to media files embedded using plug-ins like Adobe Flash player or HTML5 <video> and <audio> tags.
Conclusion: If you are annoyed when media files like MP3 and MP4 start to load and play automatically in web sites, then Firefox allows easy turning off of the automatic media play. You can disable automatic media playing in Firefox so that directly linked media files do not suddenly start playing.