I cannot tell you how many times I’ve been in a situation where the last thing I needed is for a website to blare sound out of my mobile device and that’s exactly what happened. This can sometimes (oddly enough) happen, even when I mute the device. So when a site does scream out I scramble to shut it down.

Is there a way to prevent this from happening? Fortunately, there is.

With the Chrome mobile app, you can disable sound on a site-by-site basis. It’s easy to do and will save you from that inevitable embarrassment, during meetings, lectures, and more.

SEE: BYOD (bring-your-own-device) policy template download (Tech Pro Research)

The caveat

There is one caveat to doing this. Because you disable sound on a site-by-site basis, the sound is on by default. This means that you have to know which sites are prone to auto-playing media, and/or those which override your device sound settings. In other words, if you miss disabling sound for a site that you visit, it’s still going to make its joyful noise when you open it during your CEO’s presentation.

You’ve been warned.

Disabling sound

In order to disable sound for a site, you need to open Chrome on your mobile device, point it to the site in question, and then do the following:

  1. Tap on the menu button in the upper right corner.
  2. Tap the site information button (i with a circle – Figure A)
  3. When prompted, tap SITE SETTINGS
  4. Under Permissions, tap Sound (Figure B)
  5. In the popup, tap Block

Figure A

Figure B

At this point, the sound is disabled for the site in question. Even if the sound is enabled for your device, you will not hear a peep from the site you just blocked.

Unblocking sound

There is no way to temporarily unblock sound from a site. In fact, the only way to unblock sound from a site is to reverse the process. So, execute the same steps above, only tap Allow from the popup (Figure C).

Figure C

Happy silence

And that’s all there is to blocking and allowing sound on a website with the mobile version of Chrome. Remember to disable sound for those sites you know could get you into trouble during those important meetings. Enjoy that happy silence.

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