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Google Chrome to stop autoplaying content with sound

venturebeat.com

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Re: Google Chrome to stop autoplaying content with sound

#41

Post by Ajedi32 »

grumblestumble wrote: post #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 a…

All of that is explained in the [design docs][1]. There are heuristics that will ensure sites like Netflix are not impacted.

[1]: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EH7qZatVnTXsBGvQc_53R97Z...

Re: Google Chrome to stop autoplaying content with sound

#42

Post by MBCook »

chickenfries wrote: post #29
MBCook wrote: post #5

> The content is muted, or does not include any audio (video only) Sigh. So no surprise audio but nothing to stop the trend of silent video ads or (even worse) muted live TV? How about NO auto playing live video or files over 250k? Don't waste my bandwidth streaming stuff I'm not trying to watch.

This would break using mp4s as "gifs" which is a pretty common practice these days. Taking away these features might cause people to go back to actual gifs which would be terrible... so I can understand why they want to leave this loophole open. I would like the idea of having a user configured limit for autoplaying gifs though...

That's why I put the 250kb number in. Maybe it should be higher. Maybe limit the dimensions.

But for the love of god don't waste my bandwidth on streaming video.

Re: Google Chrome to stop autoplaying content with sound

#43

Post by outsidetheparty »

andybak wrote: post #35
outsidetheparty wrote: post #4

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.

ah phooey just let me have my totally unwarranted nostalgia for imaginary better days gone by

Re: Google Chrome to stop autoplaying content with sound

#44

Post by xeromal »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #23
MBCook wrote: post #5

> The content is muted, or does not include any audio (video only) Sigh. So no surprise audio but nothing to stop the trend of silent video ads or (even worse) muted live TV? How about NO auto playing live video or files over 250k? Don't waste my bandwidth streaming stuff I'm not trying to watch.

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.

What about GIFs?

Re: Google Chrome to stop autoplaying content with sound

#45

Post by grumblestumble »

grumblestumble wrote: post #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 a…

Looks like this is taken into account by the MEI doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_278v_plodvgtXSgnEJ0yjZJ...

as well as "The user tapped or clicked somewhere on the site during the browsing session" (from https://sites.google.com/a/chromium.org/dev/audio-video/auto...) which should make it a non-issue for SPAs focused on video playback.

Re: Google Chrome to stop autoplaying content with sound

#46

Post by wlesieutre »

msla wrote: post #8
outsidetheparty wrote: post #4

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.

Autoplay music was in for a while, went out, then came back in, from what I recall: Back in the 1990s, it was MIDI files on the stereotypical Geocities page, or completely hand-made pages, and that went out in a massive design backlash against those kinds of sites. Now, it's coming back in the form of autoplay video on news sites, for example, which would have been impossible in the dial-up era. So this isn't a new t…

>Annoying people have always been annoying.

But it increases engagement!!!

I'm happy to see these changes coming.

Re: Google Chrome to stop autoplaying content with sound

#47

Post by icebraining »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #32
loeg wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Right, but how would the browser tell which is the main set of content?

Re: Google Chrome to stop autoplaying content with sound

#49

Post by koonsolo »

j_s wrote: 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

And this one: "What's interesting here is how what this really demonstrates is that Flash really was exactly what we wanted".

With HTML5, who didn't see annoying JavaScript popups and autoplay videos coming? Seriously.

If you think about the web, think about 2 things: 1. Text content 2. Multimedia content

People complaining about Flash always used arguments for nr 1.

For me, I want my text content to be really static text content, and my multimedia content to be boxed-in multimedia. HTML4 and Flash were good at that. Now you have a mix of both: 1. Text content with annoying interactions 2. Crippled multimedia content (think about the terrible way iOS handles audio for HTML5 games. Expect this in all browsers soon).

Re: Google Chrome to stop autoplaying content with sound

#50

Post by jedberg »

MBCook wrote: post #42
chickenfries wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would break using mp4s as "gifs" which is a pretty common practice these days. Taking away these features might cause people to go back to actual gifs which would be terrible... so I can understand why they want to leave this loophole open. I would like the idea of having a user configured limit for autoplaying gifs though...

That's why I put the 250kb number in. Maybe it should be higher. Maybe limit the dimensions. But for the love of god don't waste my bandwidth on streaming video.

If you set any arbitrary number, the ad networks will simply report that number as the size, or chunk the video into that size and make the page keep requesting small video after small video.
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