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Google Chrome may soon get audio indicators to show you noisy tabs

thenextweb.com

61–70 of 111 posts

Re: Google Chrome may soon get audio indicators to show you noisy tabs

#61

While I'll be glad for the audio indicators why not just mute every tab by default? Any user interaction on a page would unmute that tab. Can I also get a bandwidth/data transfer rate indicator per tab too?

I often listen to Grooveshark or Youtube on an invisible tab.

Re: Google Chrome may soon get audio indicators to show you noisy tabs

#64
post #41
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never run Safari and I find this interesting. So if the tab is say, torn apart and put on a second monitor (which is visible), but you're working on another tab, does it literally pause the animation halfway?

I'm pretty sure it's just starting the animation.

Can confirm this. It was a good feature when using youtube. I usually search for something then shift+click about 4-5 links and watch them one by one. In chrome you have to go into each on of those tabs and pause the video to avoid a clusterf*ck of different sounds. With safari it seems to do it automatically.

Re: Google Chrome may soon get audio indicators to show you noisy tabs

#65
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if it works reliably though. I wonder whether they can make it work with plugins. Maybe you'd have to get a hook with some platform specific OS API that tells you when sound is playing (does this even exist though)? You could then match this to user interactions within the browser - did the user click inside my browser window when the event started? Then it's probably happening within that tab and I'm gonna show…

That's basically what the MuteTab Chrome extension does (although since extensions don't have access to OS functions, it doesn't tell you if anything is playing a sound or not.) But with the new code they at the very least have it working with Flash. You can try it out right now by downloading a canary build and going to a Flash site (such as homestarrunner.com.) The reason it works now while it didn't before is that…

> although since extensions don't have access to OS functions, it doesn't tell you if anything is playing a sound or not

and that's why this should be a browser feature and not an extension.

Re: Google Chrome may soon get audio indicators to show you noisy tabs

#66
Great, yet another feature that should be being implemented by the OS VENDOR, intead being implemented in a non-standardized manner by an APP DEVELOPER.

See kids, this is what happens when your OS vendors decide that its more important to add shiny to their products than it is to fix deep architectural problems. In this case, that problem is that the AUDIO API's do not already have a native way to add this indicator, anywhere in the OS ..

IF there were a real Digital Audio Mixer implemented in your average Consumer OS, then we'd have per-app audio controls natively being included in such a Mixer interface .. however, the OS vendors have decided its more fun to make shiny things than actually .. you know .. provide valuable OS services.

Color me grumpy. It sucks that the Google Chrome team are having to implement this..

Re: Google Chrome may soon get audio indicators to show you noisy tabs

#68
post #32
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a somewhat related note, while an audio indicator is a nice addition, autoplay itself should really be a user controllable browser setting.

Chrome has a click to play feature under plugins.

I turned this on a few days ago after all the high profile drive-by hackings. I couldn't be more happy with the results. I've added exceptions for youtube, reddit and a few other sites but I feel a lot safer browsing the web now!

Re: Google Chrome may soon get audio indicators to show you noisy tabs

#69

Isn't the fact that we're all so excited by this hampered by the fact that it sucks that Chrome automatically starts youtube videos when you open the tab and that's the only reason we need this.

Use Chrome's "click to play" feature or extensions such as Flashblock or "Stop Autoplay" if this is your problem. This feature is more useful generally.

Links to extensions that stop autoplay:

for Chrome – extension “Stop Autoplay for YouTube” https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stop-autoplay-for-...

for Firefox – user script “YouTube Auto Buffer & Auto HD & Remove Ads” http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/49366

Re: Google Chrome may soon get audio indicators to show you noisy tabs

#70
post #56

Great news. An indicator for CPU usage would be great too.

I would love that too. Blows my mind sometimes how much CPU some pages or sites use. One of my kids plays Moshi Monsters, and that seems to challenge the CPU more than even Far cry 3. Which to me is absurd. I suppose that would be something to do with MM not using the GPU?

So yeah, a CPU indicator in the tab could be handy.

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