7 ms·

Am I the only one to feel that autoplay video should be disabled by default, ESPECIALLY if the video isn't even being rendered inside the visible portion of the

Am I the only one to feel that autoplay video should be disabled by default, ESPECIALLY if the video isn't even being rendered inside the visible portion of the viewport when it begins playing? I am _sick to death_ of random noise coming from web pages (namely, news articles) and having to try and find the source of it.

notatoad 7y ago
Autoplay video with no audio track is being used as a lower-bandwidth alternative to gifs, and it's great for that. Firefox's solution is a good one - don't ban autoplaying video, ban autoplaying video that includes sound, unless it is specifically allowed for that site.
- carmate383 7y ago
  But why should a video automatically _begin_ playing if I can't see it?
  - moreira 7y ago
    The same reason a GIF begins playing if you can't see it. As mentioned, video without audio is being used as a GIF replacement; it makes sense for it to behave the same way.
    - darkpuma 7y ago
      Why should a gif begin playing if you can't see it?
      - moreira 7y ago
        I didn't say that it should, only that no-audio videos behaving like GIFs seems like a good idea for bandwidth. Otherwise people will just use GIFs.
- rocky1138 7y ago
  I'd rather them go all the way then offer us a whitelist.
- swiley 7y ago
  That’s strange, very small animated gifs are often smaller than the equivalent video, especially ones with low color counts.
  - Thorrez 7y ago
    There are tons of videos that aren't very tiny, and that have large color counts. notatoad is talking about those.
jaredsohn 7y ago
If you want help identifying where the sounds came from and use Chrome, check out a chrome extension I built (http://www.mutetab.com http://www.mutetab.com) which will let you see which tabs most recently played a sound.
- zrobotics 7y ago
  Firefox already does this better than Chrome, tabs that are playing sound have a speaker icon next to them, and can be muted without switching to the tab by clicking the speaker. However, this looks like a great extension, since I normally have 6-10 windows open across desktops, and have definitely played the "hunt the tab" game to find the offending window. A central place to find this is great, but I really wish Chrome by default had some sort of indicator for sound.
  - jaredsohn 7y ago
    > tabs that are playing sound have a speaker icon next to them, and can be muted without switching to the tab by clicking the speaker. Chrome has that, too, but you need to right-click->mute to mute. Mentioned my extension since it should make it easier to find the noisy tab because of the centralization, but haven't ported it to Firefox.
    - zrobotics 7y ago
      Oddly, my chrome install (win 10,very seldom used) does not do this. Just tested with both YouTube & NPR playing audio, I get no indication of audio playing. I guess it's time to play sysadmin.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
  - scrollaway 7y ago
    Chrome also has a speaker icon in the tab. You can mute it with right clicking => Mute site.
N_trglctc_joe 7y ago
Not at all, and autoplay is way too difficult to completely prevent. Even on Firefox with media.autoplay.default set to 1, noscript, and UBO some sites still play video without my interaction. News sites are the worst about it; I'm considering switching some of my web usage to a text-only browser. [edit] After perusing the comments of the article, I took the advice of "ryanja" and also set the following to false in about:config, and it seems to have been effective. media.autoplay.allow-extension-background-pages media.autoplay.enabled.user-gestures-needed media.block-autoplay-until-in-foreground

notatoad 7y ago

Autoplay video with no audio track is being used as a lower-bandwidth alternative to gifs, and it's great for that. Firefox's solution is a good one - don't ban autoplaying video, ban autoplaying video that includes sound, unless it is specifically allowed for that site.

carmate383 7y ago
But why should a video automatically _begin_ playing if I can't see it?
- moreira 7y ago
  The same reason a GIF begins playing if you can't see it. As mentioned, video without audio is being used as a GIF replacement; it makes sense for it to behave the same way.
  - darkpuma 7y ago
    Why should a gif begin playing if you can't see it?
    - moreira 7y ago
      I didn't say that it should, only that no-audio videos behaving like GIFs seems like a good idea for bandwidth. Otherwise people will just use GIFs.
rocky1138 7y ago
I'd rather them go all the way then offer us a whitelist.
swiley 7y ago
That’s strange, very small animated gifs are often smaller than the equivalent video, especially ones with low color counts.
- Thorrez 7y ago
  There are tons of videos that aren't very tiny, and that have large color counts. notatoad is talking about those.

jaredsohn 7y ago

If you want help identifying where the sounds came from and use Chrome, check out a chrome extension I built (http://www.mutetab.com http://www.mutetab.com) which will let you see which tabs most recently played a sound.

zrobotics 7y ago
Firefox already does this better than Chrome, tabs that are playing sound have a speaker icon next to them, and can be muted without switching to the tab by clicking the speaker. However, this looks like a great extension, since I normally have 6-10 windows open across desktops, and have definitely played the "hunt the tab" game to find the offending window. A central place to find this is great, but I really wish Chrome by default had some sort of indicator for sound.
- jaredsohn 7y ago
  > tabs that are playing sound have a speaker icon next to them, and can be muted without switching to the tab by clicking the speaker. Chrome has that, too, but you need to right-click->mute to mute. Mentioned my extension since it should make it easier to find the noisy tab because of the centralization, but haven't ported it to Firefox.
  - zrobotics 7y ago
    Oddly, my chrome install (win 10,very seldom used) does not do this. Just tested with both YouTube & NPR playing audio, I get no indication of audio playing. I guess it's time to play sysadmin.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
- scrollaway 7y ago
  Chrome also has a speaker icon in the tab. You can mute it with right clicking => Mute site.

N_trglctc_joe 7y ago

Not at all, and autoplay is way too difficult to completely prevent. Even on Firefox with media.autoplay.default set to 1, noscript, and UBO some sites still play video without my interaction. News sites are the worst about it; I'm considering switching some of my web usage to a text-only browser. [edit] After perusing the comments of the article, I took the advice of "ryanja" and also set the following to false in about:config, and it seems to have been effective. media.autoplay.allow-extension-background-pages media.autoplay.enabled.user-gestures-needed media.block-autoplay-until-in-foreground