[Tip] Enable Firefox to Show Media Controls on Windows 10 Lock Screen

The recently released Mozilla Firefox 80.0 and later versions come with a secret feature which can be activated and enabled to show media controls overlay on Windows 10 Lock Screen as well as when the user press multimedia keys on the keyboard.

This media controls feature is disabled by default and interested users need to manually activate and enable it by modifying a preference/flag. In this tutorial, we’ll tell you how to enable this secret feature in Firefox.

Once you activate this feature in Firefox and you press any multimedia key such as Volume Up or Volume Down present on your keyboard, Firefox shows currently playing video information along with Back, Forward and Play/Pause buttons near the Volume slider fly-out to control the video playback as shown in following screenshot:

Similarly when you activate this feature in Firefox, Windows 10 Lock Screen also starts displaying the same media controls fly-out as shown in following screenshot:

It’s a useful feature as you can directly control the playing video right from Windows 10 Lock Screen or by pressing multimedia keys on your keyboard.

If you also want to turn on media controls feature in Firefox, following steps will help you:

1. Open Mozilla Firefox and type about:config in the addressbar and press Enter. It’ll show you a warning message, click on “Accept the Risk and Continue” button. It’ll open Firefox’s hidden secret advanced configuration page i.e. about:config page.

2. Now type mediakeys in Search filter box and look for following preference in the window:

The preference value is set to false by default, which means the media controls feature is deactivated and disabled in Firefox.

3. To manually activate and enable the feature, double-click on media.hardwaremediakeys.enabled preference and set it to true. Alternatively, you can click on the Toggle icon given next to the preference name.

That’s it. Now try to open a video page in Firefox or if you have already opened a video page, refresh it. Now press multimedia keys and you’ll see media controls buttons on screen. If you are using Windows 10 operating system, press WIN+L keys together to lock the screen and you’ll notice media controls on Lock Screen as well.

PS: To remove the media controls feature, open about:config page again and set the media.hardwaremediakeys.enabled preference/flag to False.

Thanks to Techdows for sharing the information…

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