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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

#111

Post by Eridrus »

fjarlq wrote: post #17

There are a couple Chromium bugs filed about this: https://crbug.com/107923 and https://crbug.com/514102 Overriding autoplay can lead to a confusing user experience -- play/pause synchronization issue with embedded YouTube videos: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1217438 The Disable HTML5 Autoplay extension is often suggested for Chrome, and it has 112,213 users, but it's far from perfect: https://chrome.…

The extension has issues, mostly around embedded YouTube videos, but it causes far fewer issues than uBlock, so I'd recommend ever who gets annoyed by this to try it out.

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

#112

Post by Gracana »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #84
JustSomeNobody wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Formatting text this way makes it hard to read on mobile and in text browsers. I couldn't even reply just now, my text wouldn't show up as I typed it, I had to click "edit" so I could view and edit my post by itself.

[edit] dang, can something be done about this? Flagging for format? Maybe a little drastic, but try reading HN in elinks, you'll see that a long line breaks the whole page. How about line wrap? Desktop users would be unaffected, and it would be a better compromise for mobile.

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

#113

Post by metasean »

egeozcan wrote: post #81
frankzinger wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/pr…

Google Chrome is another auto-update offender.

Inevitably it updates while I'm tethered to my phone (which has a small data allowance).

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

#114

Post by kpozin »

egeozcan wrote: post #81
frankzinger wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/pr…

You can configure Android to treat any specific WiFi network as metered, so apps that care will treat it the same as a mobile network. Look in Settings > Data usage > Wi-Fi > Network restrictions (might be in an overflow menu).

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

#115

Post by Ruphin »

What you are really asking is for Google, Apple, Mozilla, and MS to make a better web _for you_. Because you don't want media to autoplay does not mean it is a good solution to just block it outright for everyone.

Some websites have legitimate use for autoplaying media. Some users (believe it or not) actually _like_ their videos autoplaying when they scroll through their Facebook feed or whatever media site they visit. Are their usecases and desires not legitimate?

Your argument is in the line of "I don't like going to Starbucks, so legislators should get together and ban Starbucks stores for everyone". Even if you have a legitimate reason for not liking Starbucks, the solution is for you to just stop going there. If you don't like websites that use autoplaying media, then stop visiting them. Or, like some others in this thread suggested, install some plugin or other software that makes sites behave the way you want to.

A call for browser vendors to implement some opt-in setting that does what you want would be much more realistic suggestion. (As some other comments pointed out, for some browsers this setting already exists)

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

#116

Post by Symbiote »

DanBC wrote: post #63
kevincox wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the same way. If there is an overlay or autoplaying video I just leave. However apparently most people aren't like us otherwise no sites would do it. And you can see that these sites get posted to HN, so at least someone is reading it. Personally though I prefer more pleasant sites.

I think that maybe the submitters are running a variety of ad-etc-blocking software, and so they're not seeing it.

Looking at Google Analytics for a website we were about to launch, I was surprised to see hits from others in the development team, tracked by Google.

I block Google Analytics (and many other things), and was surprised that none of my colleagues do the same.

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

#117

Post by qbrass »

phobius wrote: post #3

Agree this is an annoyance - how would you propose keeping features like YouTube or Netflix autoplay/playlists in this scenario?

Handle playlists as a stream instead of multiple videos. Then you only have to hit play to start the stream.

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

#118

Post by t64wdrk »

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.

At my last job at a web agency, I was told to make a newsletter popup that opened on first page load. I said to my project manager (he was a web developer before) that it was bad design and everyone finds it annoying. He said that the client wanted it, and I should just do it.

I asked him, what if the client wanted a pink unicorn gif in the corner, should we just do that as well? Without telling the client that it doesn't fit the site? He said yes...

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

#119

Post by mikro2nd »

brassic wrote: post #77
kevincox wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You don't need a pause button on all the videos. You just need a single button that pauses all the videos. I would be delighted if the escape key on my laptop served this purpose. Of course, now you have no UI no restart a particular video. But the advertisers would figure this out about 30s after a global pause feature was introduced.

Look at your keyboard, up there, top row, right hand side. You might just be the person who has found an actual use for that button labelled "Pause". Congrats! ;)

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

#120

Post by bbarn »

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…

It actually triggers anger in me when I've started to read and something pops up over it. It's the least likely way to get me to click your thing.
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