Chrome 64 Beta Adds Sitewide Audio Muting, Pop-Up Blocker, Windows 10 HDR Video (9to5google.com)

Chrome 64 is now in beta and it has several new features over version 63. In addition to a stronger pop-up blocker and support for HDR video playback when Windows 10 is in HDR mode, Chrome 64 features sitewide audio muting to block sound when navigating to other pages within a site. 9to5Google reports: An improved pop-up blocker in Chrome 64 prevents sites with abusive experiences -- like disguising links as play buttons and site controls, or transparent overlays -- from opening new tabs or windows. Meanwhile, as announced in November, other security measures in Chrome will prevent malicious auto-redirects. Beginning in version 64, the browser will counter surprise redirects from third-party content embedded into pages. The browser now blocks third-party iframes unless a user has directly interacted with it. When a redirect attempt occurs, users will remain on their current page with an infobar popping up to detail the block. This version also adds a new sitewide audio muting setting. It will be accessible from the permissions dropdown by tapping the info icon or green lock in the URL bar. This version also brings support for HDR video playback when Windows 10 is in HDR mode. It requires the Windows 10 Fall Creator Update, HDR-compatible graphics card, and display. Meanwhile, on Windows, Google is currently prototyping support for an operating system's native notification center. Other features include a new "Split view" feature available on Chrome OS. Developers will also be able to take advantage of the Resize Observer API to build responsive sites with "finger control to observe changes to sizes of elements on a page."

Comments

Muting is nice...

[grasshoppa]

...but what I really really want is a way to disable auto-playing videos. I have the Disable HTML5 Autoplay extension, flashblock and ABP, but a lot of sites still have videos that auto play. Given I'm normally working on a metered connection, this causes unnecessary use of bandwidth.

Shouldn't be so damn hard to prevent this, I would think.

Re:Muting is nice...

[Gravis Zero]

A) Uninstall/disable the Flash plugin and uninstall the Disable HTML5 Autoplay extension.
B) Install the AutoplayStopper extension.

Re:Muting is nice...

[AmiMoJo]

ABP is kinda old and crap now. Try uBlock. I'm particular, Google "uBlock medium mode" and give it a try. It blocks auto play videos for me with minimal breakage. It's also faster and uses less memory in general.

Re:Muting is nice...

[DontBeAMoran]

Seconded. If we have to mute audio, it's already too late and the unwanted video has already loaded, already wasted bandwidth and already wasted CPU power.

Also, I don't know WTF Google are doing, but YouTube is much worst on Safari than it was a year ago.

Re:Muting is nice...

[TheRealMindChild]

Firefox has a setting for it, media.autoplay.enabled = false

But it is inherently buggy because of all of the custom ways websites play their video

Re:Muting is nice...

[Greyfox]

I run noscript and whitelist sites that are allowed to run Javascript. I'm frequently astounded by how obnoxious an experience it is to browse the internet without them. I think if I didn't have the options of ublock and noscript, I'd browse the web a lot less than I do now. Which might not be a bad thing, I suppose.

Re:Muting is nice...

[Tony Isaac]

I use this setting all the time, and it generally works. But it STILL doesn't prevent the video from downloading, it just immediately pauses it. I want it to block the video content from even starting to download!

Re:Muting is nice...

[knorthern knight]

> Firefox has a setting for it, media.autoplay.enabled = false

I use Pale Moon, a Firefox fork. It has 2 settings that have to be disabled

media.autoplay.enabled = false
media.autoplay.allowscripted = false

Does Firefox have the second one? The one downside is that I sometimes have to hit

play; stop; play

on Youtube or other HTML5 websites to get a video playing that I want to play.

in other words, mostly bloat

[sittingnut]

does all these mostly bloat features have an easy turn off option if user does not need them, not just when running, but when building/getting binary?

Re:in other words, mostly bloat

[ArsonSmith]

Yea, I really don't need bloat like a switch to turn off audio. Is there a config option to not compile that in?

Password Import/Export? (again)

[hazem]

Call me when they restore the ability to export and import saved passwords.

So..

[Z80a]

Do your need an R4300 MIPS CPU, SGI coprocessor/3D rasterizer and cartridge slot to run this version?

Re:So..

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Didn't Chromodore 64 actually have the 6510?

FFS just deprecate window.open

[DeplorableCodeMonkey]

The W3C should just deprecate the ability to open new windows programmatically. 95% of its use on the Internet is for shady advertising. The other 5% are apps that provide bad UX. In other words, it has no legitimate use.

Re:FFS just deprecate window.open

[DNS-and-BIND]

Without advertising, the web wouldn't exist. Be careful what you ask for.

Re:FFS just deprecate window.open

[theweatherelectric]

Without advertising, the web wouldn't exist.

Of course it would. The web existed before web advertising and the web would continue to exist without web advertising.

You've been sold a lie and, tragically, you have believed it.

Re:FFS just deprecate window.open

[blind biker]

The W3C should just deprecate the ability to open new windows programmatically. 95% of its use on the Internet is for shady advertising. The other 5% are apps that provide bad UX. In other words, it has no legitimate use.

Sometimes it feels like 100% of the use is for scam ads.

Re:FFS just deprecate window.open

[swillden]

Without advertising, the web wouldn't exist.

Of course it would. The web existed before web advertising and the web would continue to exist without web advertising.

Of course the web would exist. Most of the content on the web however, would not. Nearly everything of quality that did exist would be paywalled or have continual banners begging for donations (the prevalence of ad-blockers is driving many news outlets in this direction). Search engines would be paywalled, or limited mostly to searching sites that themselves are paywalled, and pay the search engine for listing. Much content would be "implicit advertising", with content sponsored by some commercial entity and hosted adjacent to that commercial entity's on-line storefront.

Without advertising, the web would exist, but it would be much less interesting. Most of the services people use regularly would not exist.

Re:FFS just deprecate window.open

[hairyfeet]

Sorry but bullshit because we used to have a web that functioned just fine with only ads that were TXT or JPG or if they wanted to be really fancy? A GIF. And it all worked fine, no need for all this blocking because ads couldn't run code and thus couldn't be filled with malware.

If this web cannot survive without malware ridden pop ups and risking people's PCs for the benefit of lazy programmers who refuse to accept responsibility for the malware they shovel while they scream about adblocking? Then let it die, nothing of value will be lost.

Re:FFS just deprecate window.open

[swillden]

Sorry but bullshit because we used to have a web that functioned just fine with only ads that were TXT or JPG

The topic under discussion was a web without ads, not a web with different kinds of ads.

Re:FFS just deprecate window.open

[theweatherelectric]

Most of the services people use regularly would not exist.

"Service"? Facebook, for example, is a surveillance platform. It exists to provide intelligence to advertisers. It exists to silo and isolate and mediate its user's experience of the web. It exists to treat you like cattle. It exists to extract profit from the control of attention. If Facebook dies, so what? Nothing of value will be lost. So called social media is bad for you, which is why Facebook is now launching its counter-narrative to try to convince you otherwise.

Mark Zuckerberg thinks web users are dumb fucks. Is he right?

Re:FFS just deprecate window.open

[Kjella]

The topic under discussion was a web without ads, not a web with different kinds of ads.

Well the start of the discussion was about deprecating window.open because it is mainly used for shady ads. The counter-argument was that we need those ads to pay for content, which then derailed into a discussion about ads in general, while the GP brought the discussion back to those particular ads. And we really don't need pop-ups, pop-unders, click-pops, click-switches where where the real content appears in the new page and so on, there's plenty other more acceptable ways to do advertising. So to get back on topic, I think killing off window.open is a great idea. I don't know a single legitimate use where I couldn't just use "open in new tab/window" myself.

Re:FFS just deprecate window.open

[lucm]

Of course the web would exist. Most of the content on the web however, would not.

Most of the content on the web is worthless junk created for the purpose of making money from ads. It's a feedback loop of mediocrity and greed.

Just like I pay $9/month to have decent, ad-free series from Netflix, I'd be willing to pay to get unbiased news and quality blog posts, unfortunately the clickbait industry has taken over and now all we get is "shocking" articles and shallow content crammed with ads.

Retarded as it sounds, for a while I was getting more and more convinced that net neutrality is not a good thing because the web is fucked and high-quality paywalls seemed like the only solution, but what will probably happen will be low-quality paywalls crammed with ads handpicked by the people who control the pipes so I don't see an upside with either scenario. We need a new system.

Re:FFS just deprecate window.open

[IBitOBear]

The real harm now is dialog.showModal() and dialog.show().

The in-page pop-ups and overlays are the new window.open(). Popup blocking should start with opt-in only for any dialogs on any sites. Popup blockers worked in the before time, so W3C let abuses back in the back door with the tag and in-standard DRM extensions.

The web is just as captured as it ever was, and now with Net Neutrality being murdered in the public square these abuses are just going to continue.

Re: Hard to dig

[Kazymyr]

Agree with above. Chrome is a Google tool designed to gather as much information about the user as it can and deliver it to the mothership, with some front-end browser functionality. I use it at work because I have no choice, but it never touches any of my personal machines.

Re: Hard to dig

[AHuxley]

It locks out third part ads. Approved ads get an encrypted direct path in.

So...

[eclectro]

Google put "doing evil" on pause and did some good. That's nice.

Need HDR monitors

[HalAtWork]

It would be nice to get a wider variety of HDR monitors, of all sizes as well. Something 55"-70"" with the low latency of a monitor would be great but there doesn't seem to be anything available

Re:Bookmarks within a web page.

[knorthern knight]

> I've been waiting for years to see the ability to add bookmarks
> within a web page added as a feature to browsers.

And so have police, to be able to run javascript code that adds child porn bookmarks to peoples' systems. Makes it a lot easier for them to meet their monthly quotas of "being tough on crime" convictions.