Steps on Screen

Browser permissions

What Are Browser Permissions?

Some websites ask to do more than show a page, such as to send you notifications or to use your camera. Before a website can do these things, your browser asks you. Your answer is called a browser permission.

What a request looks like

The request comes from your browser, not from the web page. It appears near the top of the browser window, under the address bar, the long box that shows the website's address. It names the website that is asking and what it wants, such as to show notifications or to use your camera.

The request has a button that allows it, such as Allow or Allow while visiting the site, and a button that does not, such as Block, Never allow or Don't Allow. The words on the buttons depend on your browser.

Sometimes, for notifications, the browser shows only a small picture in the address bar instead, such as a bell. You do not need to click it.

What websites ask for most often

How to choose

Allow a request when you have just asked the website for something that needs it. For example, you clicked to join a video call, and the website then asks to use your camera and microphone.

On a Mac, after you allow a website to use the camera or microphone, the Mac may also ask, one time, whether the browser itself, such as Google Chrome, may use it. This request names the browser, not the website. If you want the website to use your camera or microphone, allow this request too.

If a request appears when you did not expect it, or you are not sure, click the button that does not allow it. This does not harm your computer. The website cannot use what it asked for, so a part of the website that needs it, such as a video call, will not work.

If you blocked a website you need from using your camera and microphone, such as for a video call, follow the steps for your browser to let it use them again:

If a page tells you to click Allow to prove you are not a robot or to play a video, and your browser asks to show notifications, click the button in your browser's request that does not allow it. Dishonest websites ask this way so they can send frightening messages later, such as a false warning that your computer has a virus.

Stop notifications you allowed before

If a website you allowed earlier now sends notifications you do not want, follow the steps for your browser, the app you use to visit websites. Windows 11 comes with Microsoft Edge, and a Mac comes with Safari.

Try a real request

To see a real request in your own browser and practice blocking it, open Practice blocking a notification request in the Scam Hub. It works in Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge on a computer.