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Google Chrome to stop autoplaying content with sound

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Re: Google Chrome to stop autoplaying content with sound

#32
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really want no auto playing of any multimedia. I wish browsers didn't support this functionality at all. The user should not ever be forced to do / go through something he does not expect to happen.

I think it's ok for specific video pages on multimedia-first sites, like Youtube. (I'm not a fan of autoplay when you go to a page with multiple results, such as a creator's page.) That's about it, though.

Like I said, it's fine if it's expected.... If it's the ONLY video in the whole page, and it's the main set of content.

Re: Google Chrome to stop autoplaying content with sound

#33
post #26

Auto-playing crap bugs the hell out of me. Some news sites do it as well even when you go and Pause the player, it will go on and play ahead after a few seconds. Started using "Disable HTML5 Autoplay"[1] extension in Chrome and works great. I wish every browser would stop sound and video by default until i hit Play or have a setting for that. [1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/disable-html5-auto...

Safari is going to stop Autoplay by default in High Sierra

Re: Google Chrome to stop autoplaying content with sound

#34
post #31

Devil's advocate / counterpoint: https://twitter.com/mcclure111/status/908675882587484160 My complaint here is that Google is making things worse for media/game pages by making life good for people reading web content proper

If you interact with the element it can play sound, so games will just be silent until you first click on them.

Re: Google Chrome to stop autoplaying content with sound

#35

It's a start. Allowing users to disable autoplay altogether would be better, but shutting down the audio is better than nothing. It's a shame that browsers increasingly have to actively defend against website behavior, instead of just being tools for displaying those websites; but, well, here we are.

> It's a shame that browsers increasingly have to actively defend against website behavior,

You make this sound like a new trend but it was always thus.

Didn't you live through the 90s before pop-up blockers were built in to browsers? Not to mentionvarious abusive plugins, attempts to trick you into installing toolbars, the hell that was RealPlayer, rewriting your history to prevent 'back', etc etc.

Re: Google Chrome to stop autoplaying content with sound

#36
post #31

Devil's advocate / counterpoint: https://twitter.com/mcclure111/status/908675882587484160 My complaint here is that Google is making things worse for media/game pages by making life good for people reading web content proper

I mean, "worse" here is really a relative term when it's so easy to re-enable for a page. I can't say i'm empathetic when i mostly see stupid autoplayed news clips and car ads.

Re: Google Chrome to stop autoplaying content with sound

#37

It's a start. Allowing users to disable autoplay altogether would be better, but shutting down the audio is better than nothing. It's a shame that browsers increasingly have to actively defend against website behavior, instead of just being tools for displaying those websites; but, well, here we are.

It looks like they're also going to add a new permission for audio: https://plus.google.com/photos/photo/100132233764003563318/6...

It's allowed by default, but I imagine you can change that in settings as with all other permissions. That way you could have a whitelist of sites that are allowed to play audio.

Re: Google Chrome to stop autoplaying content with sound

#39
How does this relate to media sites? eg. Netflix, HBOGo, the rest of the cable channel web apps? If a user clicks on a thumbnail preview and is taken to a separate page with a video, will they now need to click on it to begin playback? Or is clicking on the thumbnail an "expression of interest" that can somehow be tracked across pages? For Netflix, how does this impact autoplaying the next episode of a show?

If the above UX issues can't be solved for, this is a hammer which is going to have an adverse impact on a growing part of the web.

Re: Google Chrome to stop autoplaying content with sound

#40

>Chrome will only autoplay a given piece of content when the media won’t play sound or the user has indicated an interest in the media. I wonder if a certain "Tube" site will have "indicated interest" on by default, hmm...

Not by default, but I imagine most YouTube users will have a high enough Media Engagement Index to allow it: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_278v_plodvgtXSgnEJ0yjZJ...
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