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Google has removed the option to disable autoplay from Mobile Chrome

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Re: Google has removed the option to disable autoplay from Mobile Chrome

#31

Post by spankalee »

(disclaimer: I work at Google, not on Chrome)

The rationale here seems to be that by blocking video autoplay, Chrome incentivized sites shipping huge animated GIFs, or decoding video in JS and painting to canvas, both of which are very suboptimal for users.

Another comment points to this issue: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=106364...

quote:

Unfortunately, full autoplay blocking is counter productive as images and can do "video" playback just fine. We had this issue on mobile and ended up enabling muted autoplay there to avoid that issues.We found many websites having 100MB gifs that could be one order of magnitude smaller when implemented as .

endquote

This seems like a case of "the more you squeeze, the more sand trickles through your fingers?". Sites already have a way of always autoplaying muted video, but it involves either shipping 10x the bytes, or spending huge amounts of CPU and battery on decoding in JS.

Might as well let them autoplay muted video and save the user's network/CPU/battery.

Re: Google has removed the option to disable autoplay from Mobile Chrome

#32

Post by userbinator »

chromeengineer3 wrote: post #13

I was curious about the rationale for this, so I did a quick search on chrome's issue tracker [1]. According to https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=106364... , it was removed because it didn't actually stop sites from autoplaying video: > full autoplay blocking is counter productive as images and can do "video" playback just fine. We had this issue on mobile and ended up enabling muted autoplay ther…

I notice your comment just a second after I posted this comment that suggests a reason: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24403934

...and it turns out I was right! "It doesn't work all the time, let's remove it." Frankly, I really really hate that attitude.

Re: Google has removed the option to disable autoplay from Mobile Chrome

#33

Post by javieranton »

chromeengineer3 wrote: post #13

I was curious about the rationale for this, so I did a quick search on chrome's issue tracker [1]. According to https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=106364... , it was removed because it didn't actually stop sites from autoplaying video: > full autoplay blocking is counter productive as images and can do "video" playback just fine. We had this issue on mobile and ended up enabling muted autoplay ther…

Sry for harassing here. If someone could look at the recent Android Webview v85 bug that has broken my app, that would be great. I raised a bug today for it https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=112552...

Re: Google has removed the option to disable autoplay from Mobile Chrome

#34

Post by adrianmonk »

ggoo wrote: post #5
yalogin wrote: post #4

This is weird. They see the general tech community slowly turning against them and they double down on all the wrong things they were doing that caused the negativity.

It's pretty difficult to change your momentum, product at google has decided on a direction and it will take a lot change that.

Then that's bad product management. Staying the course is one thing, but realizing you're off course is also important.

Google needs to improve its ability to lead. Which is not the same thing as being wedded to an idea and insular.

Re: Google has removed the option to disable autoplay from Mobile Chrome

#35

Post by searchableguy »

bfuclusion wrote: post #7

I can't have Ublock origin, so mobile chrome is already a shit show.

Some chromium browsers support extension on mobile or come up with their own pretty ad blocker (it's adequate).

Checkout kiwi: https://github.com/kiwibrowser/src

Though, no idea about extensive security.

Re: Google has removed the option to disable autoplay from Mobile Chrome

#36

Post by hipsterstal1n »

untog wrote: post #16
yalogin wrote: post #4

This is weird. They see the general tech community slowly turning against them and they double down on all the wrong things they were doing that caused the negativity.

The general tech community is a tiny fraction of their user base, though. Put simply, they don’t care.

Exactly. Those that care and / or know enough to care are a tiny fraction of the population, in the same vein as those who care enough to use Linux instead of Windows.

Google knows that with their high usage numbers (partly thanks to Android and Firefox's mistakes in the 2000s to mid 2010's, they can do pretty much anything and will still keep their Chrome browser popularity. This is thanks to Android and the general population across the world who don't care enough about their privacy. Plus, if someone uninstalls Chrome where will they go? To Brave (Chromium), Opera(Chromium), Edge(Chromium), Vivaldi(Chromium), or Firefox.

Re: Google has removed the option to disable autoplay from Mobile Chrome

#37

Post by duskwuff »

userbinator wrote: post #32
chromeengineer3 wrote: post #13

I was curious about the rationale for this, so I did a quick search on chrome's issue tracker [1]. According to https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=106364... , it was removed because it didn't actually stop sites from autoplaying video: > full autoplay blocking is counter productive as images and can do "video" playback just fine. We had this issue on mobile and ended up enabling muted autoplay ther…

I notice your comment just a second after I posted this comment that suggests a reason: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24403934 ...and it turns out I was right! "It doesn't work all the time, let's remove it." Frankly, I really really hate that attitude.

Well... not so much "it doesn't work all the time", but "publishers are reacting to the existence of this option by using grossly inefficient alternatives which we can't block".

Re: Google has removed the option to disable autoplay from Mobile Chrome

#38

Post by netsharc »

spankalee wrote: post #31

(disclaimer: I work at Google, not on Chrome) The rationale here seems to be that by blocking video autoplay, Chrome incentivized sites shipping huge animated GIFs, or decoding video in JS and painting to canvas, both of which are very suboptimal for users. Another comment points to this issue: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=106364... quote: Unfortunately, full autoplay blocking is counter prod…

Huh, if it were my software I'd add the option of allowing 100MB GIFs or only on demand, and whether the browser should automatically stream blobs for the canvas or not...

Re: Google has removed the option to disable autoplay from Mobile Chrome

#39

Post by userbinator »

spankalee wrote: post #31

(disclaimer: I work at Google, not on Chrome) The rationale here seems to be that by blocking video autoplay, Chrome incentivized sites shipping huge animated GIFs, or decoding video in JS and painting to canvas, both of which are very suboptimal for users. Another comment points to this issue: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=106364... quote: Unfortunately, full autoplay blocking is counter prod…

Then maybe the solution is to also have the option turn off animated GIFs and perhaps frequent canvas repaints too; and not simply give up completely!

In any case, just leaving the option alone so at least it has some effect like it did before, would still be better than essentially a full surrender.

Re: Google has removed the option to disable autoplay from Mobile Chrome

#40

Post by [deleted] »

barkerja wrote: post #24
toyg wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Works for Apple.

Not sure what you're referring to, but Safari has three configurable options for auto-play: - Allow All Auto-Play - Stop Media with Sound - Never Auto-Play This can be configured on a global level, or on a site-by-site basis.

[deleted]
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