debian 8 MATE live image - no browser sound

[Tom <himself@tomdrinkwater.com>]

I am new to GNU/linux and to debian and I hope this is an appropriate
place to report a problem.

I looked at the the debian bug reporting system but it was
incomprehensible to me in the time I have available.

I have been trying several versions of debian.

I probably want to use Debian 8 stable with MATE

There seems to be a problem with the Mate live image that I got from here:

http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current-live/amd64/bt-hybrid/

when running from the live image, and also after install there is no
sound on anything through a browser or from the net. Playing local sound
files works fine.

I poked at alsa and pulse audio settings but couldn't find the problem.

I have also tried the XFCE and Gnome live images and they do not have
the same problem.

Additionally When I installed MATE on top of the XFCE install it did not
have this problem.

However, I would like to use a plain MATE install of a stable release -
or as close to it as possible. I am not expert in configuring the system
and the more complex the install the more likely I am to have problems.

Anyway, all i'm really doing here is reporting the problem in the hope
it will get fixed and a fixed live image made available.

If anyone knows how to fix it, I'm also happy to try things.