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The issue is that the plugin model means that Firefox has no way of knowing if sound is playing via a plugin. The plugins access the OS's sound layer directly.

Edit: The relevant bug report: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=486262

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Except that it's not playing via a plugin. It's HTML5 audio. I feel as though this, at least, could be known and indicated.

The objection [from the bug report] being that they don't want to introduce inconsistent behaviour depending on how the sound is being played (plugin vs HTML5 audio).

If I don't like how a plugin works, I can uninstall the plugin. If I don't like how the browser works, I can... oh, I guess I can uninstall that too.

In modern browsers it's possible for a webpage to change its favicon dynamically. Developers should take the habit of indicating their site is playing sound there.

Good luck with that. "Hey annoying people, it's best practice to let us know when you're being annoying".

True... It would still be a useful good practice for non-annoying websites. Sometimes you start a video somewhere but can't remember in which tab it is.

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