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PSA: Google Chrome Now Lets You Permanently Mute Websites That Autoplay Videos (independent.co.uk)

Posted by BeauHD on from the sanity-saving-features dept.

Google is releasing a new version of Chrome this week and it includes a number of new features, such as an improved ad blocker and Spectre mitigations. The best new feature in Chrome 64 is the ability to permanently mute websites that autoplay videos. This feature was teased for several months, but now it's finally here. The Independent reports: To mute a site that automatically plays videos, users will need click the View Site Information symbol, which may look like a green padlock, on the left-hand edge of the omnibar -- the address bar combined with the Google search box. Then they will need to select Sound. Once the website is muted, it will not automatically play videos with sound again until you unmute it.

5 of 89 comments (clear)

  1. I'd prefer to be able to temporarily unmute by dmomo · · Score: 4, Informative

    I tried this out on CNN. It works, but if I want to hear a video, I have to choose "always allow this site to play audio". It's a bit too fidgety for my liking, but better than nothing.

  2. GIF would be even worse by tepples · · Score: 4, Informative

    Google's rationale behind allowing muted autoplaying video is that if the video fails to load, playback is likely to fall back to a GIF animation, which uses your bandwidth even less efficiently:

    Disabling autoplay had the unintended effect of driving developers to alternatives such as animated GIFs, as well as <canvas> and <img> hacks. These techniques are much worse than optimized video in terms of power consumption, performance, bandwidth requirements, data cost and memory usage. Video can provide higher quality than animated GIFs, with far better compression: around 10 times on average, and up to 100 times at best. Video decoding in JavaScript is possible, but it's a huge drain on battery power.

  3. Big Feature! by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 4, Informative

    I can see why that feature needed a several month cycle to get into Chrome. I mean, can you imagine the difficulty of implementing and testing that feature.

    Of course, not autoplaying video was a rule for like 20 years, and had the added benefit of loading faster, less bandwidth, and just as many clicks to watch the video.

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    Your ad here. Ask me how!
    1. Re:Big Feature! by markdavis · · Score: 3, Informative

      >"Of course, not autoplaying video was a rule for like 20 years, and had the added benefit of loading faster, less bandwidth, and just as many clicks to watch the video."

      Bingo. It is not like ANY USER really wants to autoplay ANY video- muted or not. As if a single click on "play" or on the video container is too much effort. The only reason for autoplay existing is for web sites to further shove annoying S*** down the throats of the users. It is a huge step backwards.

  4. Re:Mute? by markdavis · · Score: 3, Informative

    >"The cynic in me says that Google is taking money from someone to leave autoplay enabled."

    Agreed. It does make you wonder....

    Now, keep in mind that disabling autoplay completely is actually pretty tricky. Firefox has been working on it, but it keeps breaking certain sites or having unintended actions. The muting part is easy. But we need a REAL fix that gives users full control.

    Searching, I found these:

    https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/s...
    https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/s...