How to Stop Autoplay Videos on Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Opera

Hi! This post will show you how to stop autoplay video on chrome, firefox, safari and opera browser. Auto play videos suck and unfortunately they are all over web. It's pretty hard to miss them! They steal your internet bandwidth and annoys to no end. And then there's this music too. If you use latest web browsers then they are fully equipped to block flash-based videos by themselves. But websites these days uses HTML5 to play videos and media. And they'll automatically start playing once the page loads.

Luckily you can stop autoplaying videos no matter its Flash or HTML5. Here I have shared some of the methods you can use to stop video autoplay on various browsers like chrome, firefox, opera and safari.

1. Stop Video Autoplay on Chrome

Chrome ships with built-in support to stop auto playing flash videos. But there are complaints about them not working. So if you have such issues then I recommend you to use a chrome extension. Just go to chrome store, download and install flashcontrol extension. Once installed it will automatically stop flash videos from playing.

The extension will simply disable flash on chrome. At any time you can easily enable flash by changing the settings.

To do so right click on the extension and choose 'Allow flash plugins on this site' or any other option you prefer.

If you notice the extension will work only for flash videos. HTML5 videos will still be playing automatically on chrome.

To stop HTML5 video auto-play get this extension instead. Once enabled, chrome will load HTML5 video but won't play it automatically. It's your call to watch it or not.

2. Stop Video Autoplay on Firefox

With Firefox you don't need plugins to stop autoplaying video at start. You can just do it right in the browser settings itself.

To stop flash video auto play in firefox, open firefox, go to 'Tools' > 'Add-ons' or simply hit the hotkey 'Ctrl+Shift+A'.

Navigate to 'Plugins' section and look for 'Shockwave Flash'. By default the dropdown besides the plug-in will show 'Always Activate', means it's enabled.

To disable Flash in Firefox choose 'Ask to Activate' option from the dropdown. This will prevent flash videos from auto-playing.

Next we have to stop HTML5 videos.

To stop autoplaying HTML5 video in firefox, enter 'about:config' in the address bar and click on "I'll be careful, I promise" button.

Now search for the option 'media.autoplay.enabled'. Once you find it double-click on it to turn it off. Else you can simply right-click click and choose 'Toggle' option. This will disable auto play.

From now on HTML5 video won't play automatically anymore on loading.

The only downside to this method is it will also prevent vimeo videos from playing. As a Vimeo user I find it annoying but guess it wouldn't be a problem to others.

Flashstoper Plugin for Firefox

If you don't bother using one more plugin, I recommend get flashstopper plugin for firefox. It will stop both flash and html5 video auto play on firefox but will not get in the way of Vimeo playback.

3. Stop Video Autoplay on Safari

If you use Mac, then there's good workaround to disable playing videos automatically in Safari. 'ClickToPlugin' tends to work earlier but seems it no longer get updates. So we have to go for other method.

First you need to turn on Safari Debug menu. For that open Terminal and type the below lines into it, hit Return and wait for couple of seconds.

defaults write com.apple.Safari
IncludeInternalDebugMenu 1

Using option '1' will enable Debug menu in safari browser. Later you can turn off Debug menu by using option '0' like this,

defaults write com.apple.Safari
IncludeInternalDebugMenu 0

But for now you just enable Debug menu so that we can stop auto play videos.

Now quit Terminal and open Safari browser. Find Debug menu and select 'Media Flags' > 'Disallow Inline Video' option (You can also try 'Video Needs User Action' if this raise issues but both options has little difference).

That's it! It will prevent autoplaying videos/audio in safari.

4. Stop Autoplay Video in Opera

And here's the method to turn off autoplay videos in opera browser. It's really very simple. You have to download and install Disable HTML5 Autoplay extension for opera. Once installed you don't have to worry about autoplaying videos anymore.

How to View, Find and Delete Cookies in Chrome

This guide will show you how to view, find and delete cookies in Google Chrome browser. If you don't know what are cookies, they are small text files stored by the web browser and keeps track of all your browsing history and much more sensitive information. And they stay there even if you end the session and exit the browser. Some websites requires cookies to be enabled on browser for proper functioning. So summing up all proper cookie management is a must if you want to keep things on check.

All Desktop and Mobile Web Browsers supports cookies. In Chrome cookies are enabled by default and you can look for and delete specific cookies or clear all of them at once. Here's how you can view, find and delete cookies in chrome.

• Read: Minimize Chrome to System Tray in Windows
• Read: View All Browsing History in Google Chrome
• Read: Show Hide Chrome Extension Button Easily

To View Cookies in Google Chrome:

• On Chrome browser, click on the top 'Menu' button and choose 'Settings' to open up chrome settings page on a new tab.
• Once you are in Settings tab, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on 'Show advanced settings...' link. This will expand the hidden settings.
• Then go to 'Privacy' section and click on 'Content settings...' button placed under it. Next a new window pops up. On top of the window you can see 'Cookies' header. Under it click on 'All cookies and site data' button to view all of the cookies saved by chrome browser.
• Now you can see cookies stored under various site-names (domains). If you haven't manually cleared up the cookies for long time then the list might be huge. Again cookies come with expiration date after which they will be deleted automatically.

To Find Cookies in Google Chrome:

• If you have so many cookies stored in your computer it will be hard to find specific cookies by simply looking at the list. In such case, use the search feature to find a particular cookie.
• To find cookies in chrome, go to cookies list and type on the search box located at the top right corner of the window. As you type chrome will show only the cookies with 'Site' name that match up to the text you type in the search box. It's just a matter of time to find a specific cookie if you know full or part of domain name.

To Delete Cookies in Google Chrome:

• To delete cookies in chrome, follow the steps provided in the previous section and find the cookie you want to delete. Then hover on the cookie name to expand the row with a 'X' button at the right-side corner. Just click on 'X' to delete the cookie permanently in chrome.
• To delete all cookies at once, open the cookies list and click on 'Remove all' button placed at the left of the search box.

That explains about managing cookies in chrome. With all the above tips you can easily view, find and delete cookies in Google chrome at any time. Chrome has a private browsing mode called Incognito and you don't have to worry about cookies and browsing history when you are in Incognito mode.

How to Reopen Closed Window in Chrome

How to reopen closed window in chrome? Do you wonder if it is possible at all? That to reopen closed window with several tabs in chrome! What if you accidentally closed down the chrome window in the middle of your browsing? Or want to revisit a webpage you were browsing a while ahead? Some people are prone to opening multiple browser windows with several tabs when browsing. And they might accidentally hit exit button and then realise they want to look over that particular information.

If you are in the same situation, then no need to panic. Google Chrome remembers all your browsing history. So in chrome browser, reopening a closed tab is no big deal. You have to simply right-click on the tab bar and from the context menu, choose the 'Reopen closed tab' option. Boom! The recently closed tab will be opened again.

Otherwise you can use the hot key 'Ctrl+Shift+T' for the doing it in windows or 'Cmd+Shift+T' if you are Mac user.

Well! Reopening tabs are okay. What if the last thing you have closed is a chrome window with multiple tabs opened? Will the same trick work? Let's see.

• Read: How to Import Chrome Bookmarks to Opera
• Read: How to View Browsing History in Chrome
• Read: How to Play Chrome Dino Game Offline

How to Reopen Closed Window in Chrome?

To reopen closed window in chrome you can use hotkeys. For Windows OS the keyboard shortcut is 'Ctrl+Shift+T' and it is 'Cmd+Shift+T' for Mac platform. Google keeps tab of all your browsing history so this trick will work in case you have accidentally closed a browser window.

And the beauty of this method is, chrome always remembers your browsing history no matter if it's a tab or window. And also it keeps track if you have closed a tab or window in chronological order.

There is an alternative way to re-open window without using keys. That is the right context-menu. You can use it to undo closed window. Right-click on the tab bar in chrome and select 'Reopen Closed Window'.

This trick will work if the last thing you have closed is a chrome window. If not you will only see 'Reopen Closed Tab' option. So keep reopening closed tabs continuously until you get 'Reopen Closed Window' option.

If you have simply closed a chrome tab and visit the webpage again simply undo your close action. Just press the keys Ctrl - Shift - T all at once or use right-click mouse and select from context menu. The process is simple.

You may not be always lucky and the above method may not work. In such case you can make use of browser history. Go to chrome browsing history and look for the recent entry in chrome. If you found the exact webpage url then click on it and you will be able to revisit the page again.

Using this simple method, you can reopen closed window in chrome browser. Those who like to have greater control over their browsing sessions can try this chrome extension 'Session Buddy' that allows to save, name and exit or reopen chrome windows/tabs at their will.

How to View Browsing History in Google Chrome

This post will show you how to view all browsing history in Google chrome browser. Just like any other web browser, chrome remembers all your browsing history while you surf net - unless you do private browsing. I'm sure you know about incognito mode in chrome that disables all extensions and addons and remembers nothing from your browsing session. But private browsing is not always possible and you'd definitely don't want someone seeing through your browsing history.

It may sound uncomfortable but there are always options to delete browser history at anytime you want. Generally this browsing history is used to provide suggestions whenever you type on address box but if you want to view all browsing history in chrome at one place here's how to do it.

• Read: Reopen Closed Windows/Tabs in Chrome
• Read: How to Minimize Chrome to System Tray
• Read: View, Find and Delete Cookies in Chrome

How to View Browsing History in Google Chrome?

Chrome browser has a dedicated section for history and from there you can manage all your browsing history. Inorder to view it launch chrome and click on the Menu button located at the top-right corner of the browser window, and go to 'History' » 'History'. Or the easiest way to access chrome browser history is to use keyboard shortcut Ctrl+H on Windows/Linux and Cmd+H on Mac OS X.

Now the history tab opens up with the long list of WebPages you have visited earlier along with the timestamp side by side. Chrome shows the browsing history in chronological order - means the most recently viewed pages are listed first.

You can either scroll through the lists or search for the browsing history. To search for a particular entry, type something on the 'Search history' text box and hit enter. This will return all WebPages that has matching text on title or url. Another quick way to access browser history is to start typing on the address box which makes chrome to pop suggestions from the stored browsing history.

View History on Chrome Mobile:

Chrome for Android: To view browser history on chrome for android, go to address bar and type 'chrome:history'. This will bring up the browsing history with most recent entry at top. You can just scroll through the list and delete entries if you want.

There is also an option to clear browsing history alltogether. Just go to Menu and tap on Settings. Then head over to Advanced and then to Privacy. Now tap on 'Clear browsing data'. You will be shown with options of data to be cleared. Check the checkbox next to the items you want to clear and tap on Clear button.

Chrome for iOS: Using 'chrome:history' option doesn't work for ios mobiles. But you can clear browsing history in Chrome for iOS. Just click on Menu » Settings. Under Settings tap on 'Clear browsing data', select the type of data you want to delete and tap on 'Clear' button.

Like that you can easily view your browsing history in Google chrome browser. Clearing up your browsing history from time to time is a good habit to follow. In case you don't want chrome to keep track of your browsing session just switch over to incognito browsing in chrome.

How to Minimize Chrome to System Tray

This post discusses about how to minimize chrome to system tray. If you are an avid internet surfer and keeps running Google chrome browser all day long, then at time you may want to minimize chrome when not using. Generally when you minimize chrome, it sits as a stack or button on the task-bar like any other windows application. But some may find it annoying especially when they have several apps running at a time.

I myself juggle with multiple windows apps at once. So simply minimizing the browser window and stacking it up along with other items on windows task bar could be a real pain and sometimes becomes too much to handle. Now there’s a handy solution to this problem. You can easily minimize chrome browser to system tray in windows. A nice chrome extension called Minimize chrome to tray will do this magic for you. By this way you can keep both the taskbar clean and application running at the background.

• Read: How to Reopen Closed Window in Chrome
• Read: How to Play Chrome Dino Game Offline
• Read: View, Find and Delete Cookies in Chrome

How to Minimize Chrome to System Tray?

Follow the below steps to minimize chrome to tray in windows.

1. Download 'Minimize chrome to tray' extension
2. Install the extension on Chrome browser
3. Minimize chrome to windows tray from then on

If you don't know how to install extension on chrome then here's the procedure. Launch Chrome browser and look for 'Menu' icon at the top-left of the screen. Click on it and head over to 'More tools' and then 'Extensions'. Now the extensions page will open in a new tab. Just scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on the 'Get more extensions' link.

Now type 'Minimize chrome to tray' in the search box and click enter. The corresponding extension will be searched for and listed on the search screen. Then select the extension you want and click on the 'Add to Chrome' button to install the extension in Google chrome browser. That will install the extension on Chrome easily.

Once you have successfully installed Minimize chrome to tray extension, Chrome browser will minimize itself to windows system tray area every time you click on the minimize button. This will keep chrome app from your way when you work on different applications. The app just stays at the background and you can go back to it whenever you want. If you have opened multiple tabs in chrome before minimizing they will stay opened as it is when you re-launch the app.

To re-launch chrome application, just click on the chrome icon on the tray and the browser will maximize itself. As simple as that!

You can even customize the way this extension works. To customize 'Minimize chrome to tray' extension, click on Menu » More tools » Extensions. Scroll down the page to find the extension and click on the 'options' link below the extension name. Now customize the settings to make the extension to behave as you please.

Chrome extensions are very handy but have the tendency to take up real estate in your browser menu bar and can make chaos if the amount of extension grew up. You can easily show hide chrome extension buttons at your convenience by setting up hot key.

By following the above steps you can easily minimize chrome to system tray in windows. If you use gmail as your default mail provider then you can enable gmail notifications on chrome to show on desktop. Another handy feature to try out.

Enable Gmail Desktop Notifications 2017 [Chrome Browser]

This post explains about How to Enable Gmail Desktop Notifications 2017. Enabling desktop notifications in Gmail would be beneficial in so many ways. You will get popup alerts of new emails, chat messages, Google plus notifications etc. right at your desktop without logging into the Gmail interface.

There are several third-party plug-ins available for this but the easiest way to enable desktop notifications on gmail is via gmail interface. Luckily this method works for Google Chrome browser but if you want to turn on gmail desktop notifications on firefox you have to rely on add-ons.

How to Enable Gmail Desktop Notifications on Chrome?

So Chrome users, follow the below steps to enable desktop notifications in gmail.

Method 1) Via Gmail Interface

1. First login to your gmail account. If you don't have one, create it first. You need to have a working phone number for registering with gmail. If you do it through Android device then you can even create gmail account without mobile number.
2. Provide the email & password and check on 'stay sign in' check box and hit Enter.
3. Once you are on gmail interface, click on gear icon at the top-right corner and go to 'Settings'.

4. Under 'General' tab, scroll down to 'Desktop Notifications' section.

5. By default the third option 'Mail notifications off' would be enabled. Now choose 'New mail notifications on' option and save. This will show up the alert whenever you receive new emails in your inbox.

6. If you are on chrome, then you will see a link 'Click here to enable desktop notifications for Gmail' on top of the page.

7. Click on the link and click again on 'Allow' button on the confirmation popup.

Done! Just close your browser window without logging out gmail, and from now on you will get popup alerts on your desktop when you receive new mails.

To disable desktop notifications you can simply revert back to 'Mail notifications off' option at any time.

Method 2) Using Chrome Extension

Alternatively you can get the job done by installing a simple add on. Here's how to enable gmail desktop notifications via chrome extension.

1. On Chrome extensions store, look for 'Gmail Notifier' extension.
2. Click 'Add to Chrome' to install the plug-in and click on the blue extension icon on top menu and login to your gmail account. No need to open gmail website directly.
3. If you have unread emails in your inbox, then the icon will turn red and shows the number of unread mails.
4. From there you can easily navigate through the emails, go to your inbox, archive or delete emails according to your need.
5. When there is new mail on your inbox, this will show a message alert at the bottom of the window.

Don't Miss:

• Create Gmail Account without Phone Number
• Minimize Chrome to System Tray in Windows

That explains about enabling desktop notifications for gmail in chrome. You can try either one of the above methods but if you use the first one, make sure to use chrome browser for enabling gmail desktop notifications.

How to Reopen Closed Window/Tab in Chrome Browser

How to Reopen Closed Window/Tab in Chrome Browser? If you accidentally closed window or tab in chrome, don't panic. Chrome provides you some easy ways to reopen closed windows or tabs in case of accidental closure or when you want to re-visit some webpage you viewed earlier.

Just go to Settings » Recent tabs in the menu to find the recently closed tabs. There is also keyboard shortcut to do this but remember Chrome browser reopens the closed tabs in chronological order starting right from the last closed tab first.

Play Google Chrome Dinosaur Game Offline

No internet connection? Offline and bored? Then kill some time by playing Google Chrome dinosaur game offline. There is a cute T-Rex Dinosaur Game hidden in your chrome browser which you can play offline.

Chrome web store contains hoards of addictive online and offline games which you can download and install in chrome browser and play. But there is a hidden dinosaur game comes in-built with chrome which you can play offline. It's a classic endless runner game which is only accessible when chrome browser detects you are offline. Follow the procedure given here to play Google chrome dino game offline.

Show Hide Chrome Extension Button Easily

Our guide will walk you through the steps to show/hide chrome extension button. Who doesn’t love extensions for their beloved chrome browser? Be a notorious developer, an avid blogger, an internet geek or whoever you are, there are tons of chrome extensions available to make your life easier.

But the problem occurs when some of these extensions (quite-a-lot) take up real estate in your browser toolbar right next to the address box. If you are like me, then I’m sure your entire chrome toolbar has been bloated with these extension buttons. Rest assured they are at your disposal and only takes few clicks to show and hide the extension buttons in Google chrome.

If you doubt that hiding a button will uninstall the extension, then the answer is NO! Hiding an extension button will NOT uninstall it, so you can still enjoy the benefits of the extensions but get rid of them from your way.

How to Show Hide Chrome Extension Button

Follow these steps to show and hide the extension button in chrome browser toolbar.

1. Before hiding the chrome extension button, first we have to set up some keyboard shortcut to access it easily. Goto Menu icon » More tools » Extensions.

2. Now scroll to the bottom and look for Keyboard shortcuts link. Then select a hot key for the extension you want to hide.

3. Now we have set up HOT key for our extension. To hide the extension button, right-click on the button you want to hide and select Hide button from the context menu.

4. If you no longer use a particular extension, then you can uninstall it by selecting select Remove from chrome. This will uninstall the extension altogether. Follow the same step to hide/remove all the extensions you want.

5. To show a previously hidden button, click the menu icon on top-right corner and go to More tools » Extensions. Now scroll through the listing and find the extension you want to show the button. And click on the Show button next to it.

4. All your chrome extensions will be disabled by default in the incognito mode. This is the private browsing mode in which chrome put off all extensions to ensure privacy. But if you want to use an extension in incognito browsing, then tick the Allow in incognito checkbox right next to the show button.

Likewise you can easily show/hide chrome extension button whenever you want.