333208 - Can't control/limit sound volume

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: Settings UI, enhancement)

Description

[Dale Burwell]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.1) Gecko/20060111 Firefox/1.5.0.1
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.1) Gecko/20060111 Firefox/1.5.0.1

I will be listening to iTunes and have it minimized to the toolbar while I am stumbling from site to site. When I reach a site that has flash or video the sound  level is not controllable. I have to shut off my head phones or speakers until I get past the site. Why is there not sound control as part of the options package. That way your ears will not suffer damage from a uncontroled site. It is a very rude awakening when your listening to soft music and get startled out of your seat by web site music blaring away. We need a way to control volumn. We have none at this time.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.surf from one site to the next 
2.
3.

Actual Results:  
stumble from site to site and be prepared for very loud volumn.

Expected Results:  
a way to control volumn or set it through options.

Comment 1

[Jesse Ruderman]

See also bug 24418, "Allow user to turn on and off rendering of video/audio (disable sound)".

Comment 2

[Nickolay_Ponomarev]

I think it is not something we can control in case of plugins.

Comment 3

[Jesse Ruderman]

*** Bug 338497 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 4

[Jesse Ruderman]

Mac OS X users can adjust sound volume from individual applications using a piece of freeware, Rogue Amoeba's Detour.  That isn't much of a solution since it only applies to Mac OS X, involves unsupported third-party software, and lets you adjust rather than limit volume.

Comment 5

[Chris Lawson (gone)]

*** Bug 338497 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 6

[len]

(In reply to comment #4)
> Mac OS X users can adjust sound volume from individual applications using a
> piece of freeware, Rogue Amoeba's Detour.  That isn't much of a solution since
> it only applies to Mac OS X, involves unsupported third-party software, and
> lets you adjust rather than limit volume.
> 

This software (Detour) is no longer supported and is a poor solution to the need for an easily accessible volume control slider or similar control for volume adjustment. I'm surprised something like this doesn't already exsist. It seems that every app that makes sound has the ability to control volume built into the UI. Why is the case for the web browser any different from any other software? 

Comment 8

[Nicolas Deveaud]

I think 4 things would be really great for controlling sounds in Firefox :

- Being able to control (adjust and mute) the general volume of the application (The most important point).


- Being able to control volume for each tab.
This would be great. For example, you could set the default volume for each tab off, and than when you want some sound, you just have to rise up the sound for the specific tab.
An icon could be placed beside the address-bar, or inside the tab-bar on each tab for example, and this icon allow you to control the volume like the one in the desktop sys tray.


- Being able to set whether the sound of a tab is "global" or just for the tab itself.
This would be a good one too. When you go to another tab, you don't see the previous tab anymore. But if there was sound on this tab, you still ear this sound !! Don't you think this is strange ??!
Of course if you want some music from a web-radio, this is useful. But why should this be the default behavior (and the only one) ?
It would be nice to be able to choose if the sound of the tab must continue or not when you change tab.

This feature is just an improvement of the previous one : When you change tab, if the previous tab if not set global, its volume if muted. When you focus on a none-global-sounded tab, than it's unmuted. Simple :).


- If you allow to shut down or lower the sound for tabs, than it would be probably necessary to have a way to show visually that a tab is playing sound. Without this, the user may miss some alerts or may be wondering why the sound doesn't work.
A way to show the tab is playing sounds can be, for example, an icon appearing on the tab in the tab-bar (if there's already an icon for controlling volume on the tab in the tab-bar, than it could be a simple change of this icon).



I'm not used to write in English. If something is not explicit, ask for precisions.

Comment 9

[cmtalbert]

Specifically w.r.t. this bug, I can only reproduce this by turning the iTunes volume control way down and the OS volume control way up.  iTunes has a very active audio control, which does not communicate at all with the Windows OS audio controls.  If that's the case, this really isn't a firefox bug (we always obey the OS volume).

Note that this effect is significantly diminished with the Windows Media player because that media player's volume control seems to also affect the overall OS volume control in some small way (or perhaps that volume control isn't as effective as the iTunes one, I don't know).

I'm using: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1b1pre) Gecko/20080903034741 Minefield/3.1b1pre

As far as making this an RFE for a feature in preferences to control browser sound volume, I'll move this over to Firefox/Preferences and request Wanted 3.1 on it, then the UX folks can determine if this is something we can do for 3.1 or v.next.  I think with the landing of audio/video support, the global volume control issue might be something we need to look into in 3.1.

Comment 10

[Charles Gilbert]

I agree that a volume control feature would be very nice. One particular site I go to from time to time always comes on blaring loudly and I have to drag up the system volume control to turn it down (after my nerves have settled down from the initial shock). It would be exceptionally nice to be able to set volume controls on a site-by-site basis, but I realize this is asking a lot.

Comment 11

[Markus Multrus]

Argh, I can't understand why some websites try to bother people by playing sound: surfing the internet is for me a (almost) pure visual thing (except videos), and having an option to disable audio-playout would be highly desirable...

Comment 13

[klonos]

Voting for this one. Firefox should have it's own volume control (other that the system's) for sound that comes from the application or from media plugins installed. This has to be implemented in order to be able to, for example, listen to music from another multimedia application while surfing.

Comment 14

[Jo Hermans]

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/04/23/apple_may_give_safari_audio_controls_to_silence_irritating_websites.html

Comment 15

[Dan Harkless]

RE: #14

Hmm, does discussion here count as prior art to invalidate Apple's attempt to patent and monopolize this long-needed feature...?

Comment 17

[Nathan2055]

In Windows 7, users can simply turn down the volume of Firefox in Volume Mixer. Why implement it into the browser itself if the OS already has support?

Comment 18

[Axel Grude [:realRaven]]

(In reply to Nathan2055 from comment #17)
> In Windows 7, users can simply turn down the volume of Firefox in Volume
> Mixer. Why implement it into the browser itself if the OS already has
> support?

Because multiple tabs have very different volumes. Bandcamp does not give a volume control on the page.