From Ars Technica:
Google is taking on the irritating trend of auto-playing Web videos with its Chrome browser. Starting in Chrome 64, which is currently earmarked for a January 2018 release, auto-play will only be allowed when the video in question is muted or when a “user has indicated an interest in the media.”
The latter applies if the site has been added to the home screen on mobile or if the user has frequently played media on the site on desktop. Google also says auto-play will be allowed if the user has “tapped or clicked somewhere on the site during the browsing session.”
. . . .
In addition, Google is adding a new site muting option to Chrome 63 (due for release in October), which allows users to completely disable audio for individual sites. The site muting option will persist between browsing sessions, allowing for some degree of user customisation.
However, Apple’s upcoming Safari 11 browser—which features its own auto-play blocking tools—will allow for more granular control, enabling users to mute auto-playing media with sound or block auto-playing media entirely on specific sites or on the Internet as a whole.
. . . .
In addition to auto-play blocking, Google is planning to implement ad-blocking inside the Chrome browser. The Google ad-blocker will block all advertising on sites that have a certain number of “unacceptable ads.” That includes ads that have pop-ups, auto-playing video, and “prestitial” count-down ads that delay content being displayed.
Link to the rest at Ars Technica
Just plug in Turn Off The Lights.
Stops all autoplay on Chrome.
I also have a YouTube No Buffer that stops auto play.
I finally gave up and uninstalled Chrome. I rarely used it, and I detest automatic updates.
I stopped using Google + ages ago because of the auto-run videos.
I’d much prefer it if Google just gave us a “no autoplay allowed” setting. I don’t really like that Google will sometimes decide that I want to allow autoplay on a site.
Still it will be nice to have even what is offered on Android where – as there is no search facility in the flags experimental settings – I’ve never found whether there is a way to turn off autoplay. I just hope that the PC setting does not become unavailable so I can continue to totally ban it (and also that we can still turn off audio by clicking on the speaker icon on a tab, though I guess that right clicking and selecting mute is not much more effort.)
I love the tech news. They can’t possibly report on anything without saying how great Apple is.
“Chrome is going to have this amazing new feature that people have requested, but don’t forget, Apple is better!”
I applaud this change. I detest sites that rudely hog my bandwidth/CPU with their unrequested videos. I hope other browsers follow suit.