Comments on: Stop the music in my browser!

Question: Stop the music in my browser!

mojohand — Sun, 31 Jul 2005 08:24:45 -0800

Is there any way to set IE or Firefox (under XP) so that it NEVER plays sound?

I have never - and I don't mean hardy ever, I mean not once, ever - wanted to hear the crappy music or sound effects the subgenius designer embedded in their site. Can IE be set to never play sounds? Or if Firefox can, this might finally tip me over to switching.

By: Gortuk

Gortuk — Sun, 31 Jul 2005 08:27:42 -0800

There's a "Background Music Conductor" extension for Firefox which blocks background .midi files. But I second your question - I'd love to have the ability to turn off ALL sound, including Flash plug ins and other embedded files, from my browser.

By: iconomy

iconomy — Sun, 31 Jul 2005 08:37:01 -0800

Try this for IE: tools/advanced - uncheck "play sounds in web pages".

By: iconomy

iconomy — Sun, 31 Jul 2005 08:38:42 -0800

Ooops - that should be

Click Tools on the browser bar, and then pick Internet Options, and then pick Advanced.

By: Sonic_Molson

Sonic_Molson — Sun, 31 Jul 2005 09:10:29 -0800

Someone should write a plugin for Firefox that would enable a on/off action for sound by clicking in the status bar somewhere. I don't want my browser to NEVER play sounds, but most of the time I find it annoying when there is sound when I don't expect it.

As for my idea/solution. My friend once told me that the software that came with his sound card drivers actually let him mute individual applications. So that means there must be software that can do this too available somewhere. I've done a quick search for this on google, but I have not found anything, if I had, I would be using this software myself. So for IE do what iconomy said. For Firefox...just wait ;-)

By: box

box — Sun, 31 Jul 2005 09:29:05 -0800

It's kind of an out-of-the-box solution, but one could probably use AdBlock to block *.mp3, *.wav, *.mid, etc.

By: box

box — Sun, 31 Jul 2005 09:32:54 -0800

Of course, you'd still have Flash noises. And you wouldn't be able to download sound files. What a terrible idea.

By: iconomy

iconomy — Sun, 31 Jul 2005 09:33:31 -0800

That's what I did, box. Works great.

By: Rhomboid

Rhomboid — Sun, 31 Jul 2005 09:46:46 -0800

If you have the quicktime plugin installed, go to its control panel and see if its set to handle the mp3 mimetype. I disabled quicktime from being active for mp3 and midi and the like, and other than flash I don't think I ever hear music on web pages. Instead I get the Firefox thing telling me I'm missing a plugin (and thankfully so.)

I don't think this will apply to IE since it seems to like to play sounds on its own without a plugin, but you can try disabling that in preferences.

By: rxrfrx

rxrfrx — Sun, 31 Jul 2005 10:41:08 -0800

Two steps:

1. Use box's tip to remove all audio elements

2. Install the FlashMute utility to turn off sound in Flash elements.

By: yeahyeahyeahwhoo

yeahyeahyeahwhoo — Mon, 01 Aug 2005 06:32:34 -0800

ive had luck with this plugin stopping embeded quicktime/windows media player video and audio:
MediaPlayerConnectivity