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

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

#81

Post by egeozcan »

frankzinger wrote: post #44
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…

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. Not all WiFi connections equate to an infinite amount of data. Due to circumstances I am on a connection for which I pay per GB and it's shared through a WiFi router. I do not want my browser to download videos u…

I have a 3G Mobile Wireless Modem/Router (TP-Link M5250[1], heavily recommended btw) and this "if wireless connection present, download all the things" attitude really annoys me. Android is a big offender. Why on earth I don't get a "download updates automatically only on this particular network" setting... Whatsapp, Google Maps and many other apps too make the same false assumption.

[1]: http://www.tp-link.com/en/products/details/cat-4692_M5250.ht...

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

#82

Post by svckr »

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…

Re 2): Pinterest.

It's the cancer of Google image search. I don't get how Google's search ranking doesn't massively penalize that behaviour.

I'd rather stomach an advertisement than the "plz register" BS.

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

#83

Post by Whitestrake »

anc84 wrote: post #76
julenx wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you visit a video explicitly, yes. But when you jump into a specific channel you don't want a default video auto-playing all the time, which is pretty annoying.

Blame Youtube for that horrible feature, not the browser.

Nobody claimed it was anyone else's fault, that's already well established. The entire premise of this thread is to discuss OP's plea for browsers to actually fix the problem.

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

#84

Post by TeMPOraL »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #52
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.

  So the other day I met the guy who makes all that crap on-line
  I told him you can have my cash
  But first you know I've got to ask
  What made you want to live this kind of life?

  He said there ain't no rest for the wicked, money don't grow on trees
  I got bills to pay, I got mouths to feed; ain't nothing in this world for free
  I know I can't slow down
  I can't hold back though you know I wish I could
  Oh no there ain't no rest for the wicked
  Until we close the shop for good...

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

#85

Post by marmaduke »

the8472 wrote: post #43
kijin wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can actually mute or pause individual videos by right-clicking on them and using the context menu. Many videos override the context menu, though, and it won't help with ads that automatically restart themselves. An option to disable an object altogether would be more useful. A more drastic solution that I sometimes resort to is to nuke the offending part of the page (often an entire sidebar) using the built-in de…

> Many videos override the context menu, though Which in turn can be overriden by shift-rightclick

Ah great tip.

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

#87

Post by Houshalter »

eru wrote: post #79
Houshalter wrote: post #58

How can they stop it without breaking lots of things? Javascript has the ability to play sounds and videos without going through the standard video player. If you disable it, wouldn't it break various web apps and games?

Why? You can make the javascript believe that it's playing, but not actually output anything. Just like when I am setting my computer on mute and turn off the screen---but in the browser instead.

But that still affects legitimate uses, like games and web apps that want audio.

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

#88

Post by ivank »

eru wrote: post #80
ivank wrote: post #13

I wrote https://github.com/ludios/mute-new-tabs and I am now happier with a quiet Chrome. The idea is to mute all new tabs and unmute them only when you interact with an in-page volume control (or manually unmute via the tab icon/context menu). This solves only the sound problem though, not the data consumption.

Awesome, thanks! Any chance you are putting it on the official extension store?

I am open to handing it over to someone I can trust who wants to distribute it there.

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

#89

Post by thomasdd »

There are situations when you need to play video on load. (for example, you want a nicely designed content or DIVs.) But Maybe a browser option to enable/disable video playback would solve this. Maybe disabling audio would be as an option, so as webdesigner you can show the relevant visual content but without sound.
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