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FlashMute: Kill obnoxious browser sounds
In my opinion, one of the worst web design faux pas is sound that starts playing automatically, perhaps surpassed only by music that can't be turned off without navigating away from the page. I'm amazed that it has taken so long for someone to make an app for dealing with this problem, but thankful that they have in the form of FlashMute. It's a free Windows app that will let you mute individual Flash movies or, alternatively, all sound coming from your web browser. FlashMute is a tiny app (a 234k download) that is operated by clicking on its icon in the system tray or pressing Ctrl+Alt+M which, to quote the FlashMute web site, "serves as a panic-button if a loud Flash movie jumps up on you," and it supports Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Netscape, and Mozilla.[Via Lifehacker]
Comments
2
Subscribe to commentsboneyardAug 16th 2006 3:42AM
if it works fine then it's a gift from heaven. i have been looking for something like this for a long time after being annoyed by many websites with way too loud music playing and such.
Andreas EibachOct 10th 2006 11:54PM
OH YES, this was necessary!!
FlashMute is not only useful with MySpace and friends, but also with advertisements on sites. Advertisements these days do not omit any chance to arouse the viewers' attraction: they even start playing sound when hovering (!) over a banner with the mouse. I have a very hi-quality subwoofer and hence I have the hardware set up to 90% volume, while the Windows volume is set at about 50%. Flash ignores this; so each of these advertisements endangers my speaker setup: you almost believe they're jumping off the wall.