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Chrome 66 Arrives With Autoplaying Content Blocked By Default (venturebeat.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the sound-of-silence dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from VentureBeat: Google today launched Chrome 66 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. The desktop release includes autoplaying content muted by default, security improvements, and new developer features. You can update to the latest version now using the browser's built-in silent updater or download it directly from google.com/chrome. In our tests, autoplaying content that is muted still plays automatically. Autoplaying content with sound, whether it has visible controls or not, and whether it is set to play on loop or not, simply does not start playing. Note that this is all encompassing -- even autoplaying content you are expecting or is the main focus of the page does not play. YouTube videos, for example, no longer start playing automatically. And in case that's not enough, or if a page somehow circumvents the autoplaying block, you can still mute whole websites.

6 of 88 comments (clear)

  1. About time by sbrown123 · · Score: 3

    So many sites playing audio and video ads nowadays. And they work more diligently than the best ad blockers at getting in your face.

    1. Re:About time by squiggleslash · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's not just advertisers. Who else is fed up with clicking on a news link only for it to start playing a 720P autoplaying video version of the same article that's already written below it? The web isn't a fucking television you stupid fuckers. Offer people a video if they want one, but don't shove this bandwidth sucking loud piece of shit I never asked for, that takes longer to consume than the writing below it, on me. Assholes.

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      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  2. Good by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 4

    I'm tired of websites wasting my bandwidth with videos I never wanted to watch in the first place.

    Now can we do something about those awful video-converted-to-animated-GIF monstrosities?

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    #DeleteFacebook
  3. Didn't work on CNN just now by Jay+Maynard · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I just updated to Chrome 66. By far my biggest autoplay annoyance is CNN; they autoplay video on every story page that has video. I'm there to read, dammit, not to watch.

    Unfortunately, this new feature in Chrome isn't helping, there: CNN still autoplays, with sound. I checked, and my media engagement index there is 0.02.

    Guess it's time to turn the hard HTML5 media block back on.

    And why not give us an option to stop autoplay on videos, whether sound is present or not?

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    Disinfect the GNU General Public Virus!
  4. Feudal by jbmartin6 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I had a moment of fun fitting this news into Bruce Shneier's notion of electronic feudalism. As serfs on the Google plantation, we look to Google to protect us from various raiding barbarians. We pay for this protection by allowing ourselves to be farmed by the Google ad machine.

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  5. Re:And there was much rejoicing! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    They DID do it first. It's been in FF for a long time. See media.autoplay.enabled.