Google Is Testing Autoplay Videos Directly In Search Results (thenextweb.com)

For a select group of individuals, Google has enabled autoplay videos in Search. "We are constantly experimenting with ways to improve the search experience for our users, but have no plans to announce [the feature] at this time," a Google spokesperson told Search Engine Land. Facebook, Instagram and Twitter all have similar features that were introduced fairly recently. If you find automatic videos to be a nuisance, now is the time to let Google know how you feel about this "feature."

Comments

Alternative headline

[Sebby]

"Google is Testing Pissing Users Off Even More Quickly"

Re:Alternative headline

[rogoshen1]

yep. kill it with fire. autoplaying *anything* is annoying as all get out.

About that

[alvinrod]

"We are constantly experimenting with ways to improve the search experience for our users"

Then why the hell are you using autoplay videos?

Re:About that

[Hognoxious]

As my physics teacher used to say: if you know the result beforehand it's not an experiment - it's a demonstration.

First they screw up news, now the search...

[Blinkin1200]

I disable video in the browser... replaced with click to play, but I would rather not wait until the video download completes.
MSN is my current substitute for Google News, anyone find anything else?

Internet is a pull system,

[CptLoRes]

stop trying to make it a push system instead.

Re:Google copying Microsoft?

[mccalli]

In fact Google recently pushed me over to Bing with their terrible, terrible Google News re'design'. It's truly awful, and Bing News is closer to the older Google News layout so off I went.

Configure your browser to stop it

[Picodon]

In Firefox (about:config), setting “media.autoplay.enabled” to “false” normally cures the problem. Obviously, it’ll affect all sites, including those where autoplay is largely expected (for example, YouTube), but it’s easy to get used to it.

Re:Configure your browser to stop it

[Picodon]

For that (completely valid) use case, Firefox has “media.block-autoplay-until-in-foreground” (set it to “true”). Of course, that’s no longer necessary if you disabled autoplay entirely with “media.autoplay.enabled”, which affects both foreground and background tabs, and which you might like better.

I mentioned YouTube in particular because, in my experience, when autoplay (“media.autoplay.enabled”) is disabled, the YouTube player appears to be started but seeking, and requires clicking twice on the “play” button (once to pause, and once more to really start the video), which is a bit befuddling the first time. It’s only a glitch, though, and I still prefer that rather than having videos start in foreground tabs for all sites.

To improve the search experience

[OneHundredAndTen]

It is bad enough for big companies to indulge in all sorts of dubious practices, but, I, for one, find it even more irritating that they regularly take us for complete imbeciles. Google, what you want to do is get more money from your search stuff. So, be bold and say so. Do not pretend you are doing this autoplay nonsense, which is bound to annoy most people, because you want the best experience for your customers. Which you do not. What you want is more money from your customers - a very different proposition.

Dear Google

[Ol Olsoc]

I really want to blow through my dat cap. What is the best way to do that?

Oh, you've already got an implemation planned?

Thank you for being so responsive!