Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dear Google, Apple, Mozilla, and MS: Please End Auto-Playing Media in Browsers

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 330 posts

Re: Dear Google, Apple, Mozilla, and MS: Please End Auto-Playing Media in Browsers

#51

Post by kevincox »

cyberferret wrote: post #39

Another suggestion - enable pausing on video. ANY video. Keep seeing more and more advertising videos that don't even give you the ability to pause. In the past 12 months or so, I am really finding my web browsing experience hitting new shitty lows. Pretty hard to see the content you want these days behind that clutter of Outbrain ads, pop up newsletter subs, auto playing videos and the like...

This is actually quite difficult because even though they are using the browsers video pipeline the browser doesn't know anything about the UI of the page so it is very hard to expose a way for the user to pause/disable any video across all sites. I guess a hotkey that puts buttons on all videos might be good but I'm sure some sites would find ways to layer fake videos that would defeat this.

It all comes back to the difficulty of running non-free software.

Re: Dear Google, Apple, Mozilla, and MS: Please End Auto-Playing Media in Browsers

#52

Post by JustSomeNobody »

tfgg wrote: post #37

Things that make me just close tabs straight away: 1) Autoplaying videos, especially ads. 2) Pop-ups / overlays. 3) Loading lots of extra elements causing text to jump around. Especially true if I'm just browsing around and click on something that looks interesting, the above will take that thing from "this might be worth 30 seconds" to "not worth it". Why kill that little dopamine boost someone just got from clickin…

Your know there are HN readers who write this crap. I wonder if they'll chime in on why they do.

Re: Dear Google, Apple, Mozilla, and MS: Please End Auto-Playing Media in Browsers

#54

Post by ygra »

kevincox wrote: post #51
cyberferret wrote: post #39

Another suggestion - enable pausing on video. ANY video. Keep seeing more and more advertising videos that don't even give you the ability to pause. In the past 12 months or so, I am really finding my web browsing experience hitting new shitty lows. Pretty hard to see the content you want these days behind that clutter of Outbrain ads, pop up newsletter subs, auto playing videos and the like...

This is actually quite difficult because even though they are using the browsers video pipeline the browser doesn't know anything about the UI of the page so it is very hard to expose a way for the user to pause/disable any video across all sites. I guess a hotkey that puts buttons on all videos might be good but I'm sure some sites would find ways to layer fake videos that would defeat this. It all comes back to the…

After all you can just use the video element off-screen and render into a canvas element. And the browser has no idea at all anymore where to display a UI for pausing video (unless they want to do something like the full-screen notification).

Re: Dear Google, Apple, Mozilla, and MS: Please End Auto-Playing Media in Browsers

#55

Post by Broken_Hippo »

This - so much this.

A common scenario in my house: The spouse or I muttering obscenities over the autoplay ads, along with a comment of, "Use your powers for good, dammit! For good!"

I find these intrusive. So much so that I occasionally browse with the computer muted - especially if the source of entertaining sound is coming from the spouse's computer or if I'm looking at cooking sites. Most times, I'm just wanting text.

Re: Dear Google, Apple, Mozilla, and MS: Please End Auto-Playing Media in Browsers

#56

Post by clarry »

cmdrfred wrote: post #53

The only problem is I want YouTube videos to do this when on that website.

Whitelists & blacklists should really be a default feature in browsers.

The big toggles that make you wide open for all the shit on the web or just break all the web are no good.

Re: Dear Google, Apple, Mozilla, and MS: Please End Auto-Playing Media in Browsers

#57

Post by chunkiestbacon »

Tepix wrote: post #46
onion2k wrote: post #41

This is eating up our data and inconveniencing millions of people using your products. The data issue can be addressed by only having videos play automatically when the user is on a wifi connection. This is the default for mobile devices already, so it's arguably already solved for most users. The "convenience" issue is something that I strongly suspect is actually something that people think one way but act another…

It's still an issue if you use a mobile wifi hotspot to go online and have limited bandwidth (like most of Japan for example).

I live in Japan, and while mobile hotspots are popular for airbnbs and tourists, I don't think most people have them here. Also, there are mobile hotspots with unlimited data. The rest of the country has unlimited fiber at home, so it's especially those people that want their youtube and facebook videos to autoplay.

I see the point tough. It's bad on a limited wifi hotspot

Re: Dear Google, Apple, Mozilla, and MS: Please End Auto-Playing Media in Browsers

#59

Post by chunkiestbacon »

onion2k wrote: post #41

This is eating up our data and inconveniencing millions of people using your products. The data issue can be addressed by only having videos play automatically when the user is on a wifi connection. This is the default for mobile devices already, so it's arguably already solved for most users. The "convenience" issue is something that I strongly suspect is actually something that people think one way but act another…

Finally somebody reasonable in this thread. Most people might want this behaviour.

Re: Dear Google, Apple, Mozilla, and MS: Please End Auto-Playing Media in Browsers

#60

Post by clarry »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #55

This - so much this. A common scenario in my house: The spouse or I muttering obscenities over the autoplay ads, along with a comment of, "Use your powers for good , dammit! For good!" I find these intrusive. So much so that I occasionally browse with the computer muted - especially if the source of entertaining sound is coming from the spouse's computer or if I'm looking at cooking sites. Most times, I'm just wantin…

Give all your monies to the advertisers. Maybe, just maybe they will stop bothering you once you have no more money to buy whatever crap they are advertising?
Post reply on HN