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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

#111

Post by boring_twenties »

scrollaway wrote: post #51
simias wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what happens when you let anybody and their friends run arbitrary code on the user's CPU. Javascript running by default was the original sin, and now there's no going back. IMO it ought to have been opt-in for the websites that really need it (i.e. web apps I actually want to use, not any random page I happen to stumble upon). There's especially no going back for Google for whom it's very much a feature since…

Animated gifs are not arbitrary code and require no javascript. You're not really making a point that actually counters GP...

Animated gifs are obviously trivial to block, so it doesn't seem worth even addressing that. The other half of the GP talks about rendering directly to canvas, using JavaScript...

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

#112

Post by madeofpalk »

edoceo wrote: post #105
userbinator wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

BigG couldn't do that (disable other user hostile media) because it would interfere with ads. Now I'm looking for a gif and canvas blocker for FF mobile. Any hints on how to tune uBO?

You can't turn off gifs or canvas because it would just break too much internet.

I could imagine and equal reaction thread here if google deemed some gifs and canvas uses "unworthy" and were blockable.

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

#113

Post by ulfw »

userbinator wrote: post #39
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.

Using a browser from an ad company will do that to you

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

#114

Post by ifmpx »

gruez wrote: post #62

tangentially related: what's everyone's solution for blocking autoplaying sticky videos? By that I mean the kind that usually shows up on news sites or tech blogs. It usually manifests as a "recommended" video that's totally unrelated to the article at hand, and stars playing without you clicking the play button. If you scroll past the video, many of them convert to a sticky mini player that stays around wherever you…

Umatrix seems to do such a good job at messing with these sites dependencies that I usually don't see sticky videos at all. It allows you to block/allow individual classes of resources for each domain.

It will require some fiddling on first visit through.

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

#115

Post by userbinator »

Conan_Kudo wrote: post #83
axaxs wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I've turned my wife, daughter, and Mom, none of whom are tech oriented at all, into Brave converts on mobile.

Unfortunately, that helps exactly zilch. Brave, along with all other Blink/Chromium based browsers and frameworks, further entrenches Chrome as the platform. Either use Firefox on Android or give up. For desktop, you have at least Firefox, Otter Browser, and Epiphany as options.

...and you can keep using IE too, or even the NetSurf/Dillo/etc. if you want to be really against "big browsers".

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

#116

Post by gopiandcode »

madeofpalk wrote: post #112
edoceo wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BigG couldn't do that (disable other user hostile media) because it would interfere with ads. Now I'm looking for a gif and canvas blocker for FF mobile. Any hints on how to tune uBO?

You can't turn off gifs or canvas because it would just break too much internet. I could imagine and equal reaction thread here if google deemed some gifs and canvas uses "unworthy" and were blockable.

This is not an excuse - the user should have the freedom to disable whatever they want - who is to say that your definition of a broken internet matches mine?

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

#117

Post by dmitryminkovsky »

swiley wrote: post #70
dmitryminkovsky wrote: post #61

A lot of comments here trying to explain this away but let me point out that Apple disabled autoplaying unmuted videos in moble Safari years ago (it's not even behind a setting as far as I know) and I can't imagine them backing off of that any time soon. On the contrary, Apple will savage decades old APIs just to marginally improve privacy [0]. Which is what Google would do if users were the customer. Apple is proble…

This. I’ve just gotten my pine phone and am going through all the trouble of recompiling basic software just to have a working phone that isn’t a “smartphone” and even I appreciated what apple did with mobile safari.

Hadn't heard of Pine or Pinephone before. Thanks looks really neat.

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

#118

Post by userbinator »

debuggingnoob wrote: post #59

This thread is a microcosm of the problems with the world at large atm. 70% of the response are people frothing at the mouth outrages over those evil "other people" when the other people had nothing but good intentions. Then absolutely refusing to see those good intentions and painting everything as poorly as possible.

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

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

#119

Post by [deleted] »

ehsankia wrote: post #76
dmitryminkovsky wrote: post #61

A lot of comments here trying to explain this away but let me point out that Apple disabled autoplaying unmuted videos in moble Safari years ago (it's not even behind a setting as far as I know) and I can't imagine them backing off of that any time soon. On the contrary, Apple will savage decades old APIs just to marginally improve privacy [0]. Which is what Google would do if users were the customer. Apple is proble…

> autoplaying unmuted videos autoplaying unmuted videos have been disabled on almost every browser, on desktop and on mobile, for years. This isn't unique to Safari and Apple. This is specifically about autoplaying muted videos, which gifs and canvas can replace.

[deleted]

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

#120

Post by SXX »

userbinator wrote: post #44
SXX wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are ways to bypass it. You can always stream 1MB of data from 100 different domains.

Regardless, the solution is not to (explicitly, i.e. removing the option was a conscious effort) give up.

I guess it's just like discussion about Do-Not-Track where having these headers actually make it easier to track you for malicious actors.
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