For years I have viewed YouTube videos in my preferred browser Safari on macOS on an M4 MacBook Pro. Recently, when re-launching Safari, the videos already populated in Safari tabs begin auto-playing. I typically have 6 or 8 Safari windows open, each with a few tabs containing YouTube videos and other unrelated websites.
This unwanted auto-play activity is new, has not been a problem in the past.
Web search reported measures to correct this, all of which I tried. These included selecting “Never Auto-Play” in Safari settings and searching through my Google account settings for some way to prevent auto-play of videos.
I use Safari 18.6, macOS Sequoia 15.6 (24G84). I recently installed an ad blocker uBlock Origin Lite. I’m not sure if this is related, but the video auto-play problem appeared several days after the ad blocker install, not at the same time.
Has Google recently changed Youtube video behavior? For several weeks Youtube videos playing in iPadOS Safari suddenly switch audio languages. The audio would play normally in English (US) for a few seconds, then suddenly switch to another random language - sometimes Spanish, other times some Eastern European language. Sometimes relaunching iPadOS Safari would resolve the problem, but otherwise I need to shut down and restart the iPad to remove the behavior. This issue has be going on for many weeks, whereas the above issue with Youtube video auto-play has appeared only in the last day or two.
I have no desire to view the videos in the YouTube app. I tried this a while back but was unhappy with the experience and will not try that again.