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What's the status of the cat and mouse game being played with autoplay video being forced on and new options needing to be hunted down? First Chrome forced it

What's the status of the cat and mouse game being played with autoplay video being forced on and new options needing to be hunted down? First Chrome forced it on, because EvilCorp's business model is around a forced-open-eyelid philosophy of advertising revenue from unstoppable impressions. Next I moved to Firefox, which in an update a few months ago changed the autoplay option to be on, removed the config attribute and made it a new one, which has as options 0, 1 and 2. Turned out autoplay default should be 1. I'm not about to wait to find out what's around the corner. I started using Vivaldi this weekend in hopes someone actually made a browser for those who don't care about some company's ad revenue. I don't know why Firefox would do that, and introduce Pocket as well. Is copying Google that sexy a thing?

MrRadar 8y ago
Get uMatrix and block Media requests globally, then whitelist on a per-domain basis. That should "fix" auto-playing videos for you permanently.
- zipperhead 8y ago
  That sounds like a lot of work for something that a browser should provide an easy, up-front way to configure.
  - Drdrdrq 8y ago
    But it's really not. Different users have different preferences and it seems like you would love uMatrix. I would suggest you give it a try.
- daleharvey 8y ago
  This is built in to Firefox now, the change to the preferences the OP is talking about was implementing that feature.
qaq 8y ago
$?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
mintplant 8y ago
> Next I moved to Firefox, which in an update a few months ago changed the autoplay option to be on, removed the config attribute and made it a new one, which has as options 0, 1 and 2. Turned out autoplay default should be 1. I don't understand what you mean here. Without having changed any of the settings from the default, Firefox (Nightly) pops up to ask me if I want to "allow auto-playing media with sound" the first time each website tries to do it. If I say no, the media doesn't auto-play.
- mancerayder 8y ago
  Right. Well I'm referring to always turning it off, and the option very specifically is: media.autoplay.default if 0, then it's on. if 1, then it's off. 2, I'm not sure.
  - daleharvey 8y ago
    pref("media.autoplay.default", 2); // 0=Allowed, 1=Blocked, 2=Prompt https://dxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/browser/app/profile/firefox.js#1484 https://dxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/browser/app/p...
    - Misdicorl 8y ago
      Curious: How is a prompt ever better than simply expecting the user to click the play button?
      - daleharvey 8y ago
        We thought it could let users enable it for sites where they wanted it as a feature (netflix, youtube, games etc) Turned out to be wrong, thats why we will be shipping blocked by default
        Misdicorl 8y ago
        Ah, didn't realize the prompt would save per site and not re-prompt. I can see how that might be useful for some people. btw: Love Firefox, thanks for working on it =).
QML 8y ago
Doesn’t Safari prevent videos from auto-playing?
- FPGAhacker 8y ago
  Not in my experience, although I thought it was supposed to.
  - chipotle_coyote 8y ago
    It's an option under "Websites" in "Preferences"; the options are "Never Auto-Play," "Always Auto-Play," and "Stop Media with Sound." The latter is the default. You can set a default for all web sites, and add override settings for specific sites. (There's actually a wealth of stuff in this preference tab: you can set defaults and per-site overrides for content blockers, page zoom levels, camera and microphone, defaulting to "Reader View" for particularly annoying sites, and so on.)
    - FPGAhacker 8y ago
      thanks!
  - sirn 8y ago
    Safari actually maintains a list of websites where they allow auto-play by default at ~/Library/Safari/SitesAllowedToAutoplay.plist. Most of them are video sites, such as YouTube, Twitch, Netflix, Nicovideo, etc. but they also have some non-video sites that heavily uses video, such as Amazon. It's a binary plist, but you can view the content using: plutil -p ~/Library/Safari/SitesAllowedToAutoplay.plist
pbhjpbhj 8y ago
Mozilla get all their money from Google, don't they? Seems like that's probably the only reasonable "reason"? Presumably they publish meeting minutes where such decisions are made?
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  Not sure how you can disagree with a question, but I looked it up: >"Back in 2014, the last year of the Google deal, that agreement brought in $323 million of the foundation’s $330 million in total revenue." They had deal with Yahoo for similar money, and walked from that to go to Google again. For financials I can find they got all but 2% of their money from Google. Presumably for this money Google gets to call some shots like no default blocking off their ads, and, I'd imagine autoplay as default if that's important to Google. I'd expect a supposedly open foundation like Mozilla to publish details of major decisions. You're not open without transparency.
ryacko 8y ago
Autoplay pads ad viewing numbers. Ad firms are probably paying Mozilla to include it.
daleharvey 8y ago
I introduced the change to 0,1,2. Not sure what happened when we first introduced autoplay but the change to 0,1,2 was so we could let users switch between enabled, disabled and ask the user. Original plan was to ask the user by default. We did some user testing with this change and it looks like we will be changing it to block by default based on feedback Not sure what this has to do with any companies ad revenue, or pocket
- mancerayder 8y ago
  That's good news, and I'm glad to hear that user feedback is considered. Thanks for your efforts and your response!
- nothrabannosir 8y ago
  Even for YouTube?
  - daleharvey 8y ago
    Yes, we dont have any whitelist / blacklist of sites we treat differently
    - nothrabannosir 8y ago
      That's.. big. Congratulations on managing to stay true to the numbers, and out of corporate influence. And thank you.
    - halfjoking 8y ago
      I hope there's a bigger backlash to Google blacklisting/whitelisting certain features on websites they deem worthy/unworthy. It's one thing to discriminate against certain sites in Search, where Google owns the webpages and servers. But to discriminate against the open web so that their services have an advantage over startups and smaller publishers is beyond unethical. At this point they're starting to act like a monopolistic ISP and should be called out for it.
- dredmorbius 8y ago
yason 8y ago
Autoplay is the last straw, I'm at the verge of migrating to Firefox for my primary browser because it seems Chromium just can't keep those damn videos from playing and more often than not the videos seem to steal keyboard too. When space, shift-space, arrow up and down stop working because of a <video> element that's a good point to decide the browser is broken.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

MrRadar 8y ago

Get uMatrix and block Media requests globally, then whitelist on a per-domain basis. That should "fix" auto-playing videos for you permanently.

zipperhead 8y ago
That sounds like a lot of work for something that a browser should provide an easy, up-front way to configure.
- Drdrdrq 8y ago
  But it's really not. Different users have different preferences and it seems like you would love uMatrix. I would suggest you give it a try.
daleharvey 8y ago
This is built in to Firefox now, the change to the preferences the OP is talking about was implementing that feature.

qaq 8y ago

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

mintplant 8y ago

> Next I moved to Firefox, which in an update a few months ago changed the autoplay option to be on, removed the config attribute and made it a new one, which has as options 0, 1 and 2. Turned out autoplay default should be 1. I don't understand what you mean here. Without having changed any of the settings from the default, Firefox (Nightly) pops up to ask me if I want to "allow auto-playing media with sound" the first time each website tries to do it. If I say no, the media doesn't auto-play.

mancerayder 8y ago
Right. Well I'm referring to always turning it off, and the option very specifically is: media.autoplay.default if 0, then it's on. if 1, then it's off. 2, I'm not sure.
- daleharvey 8y ago
  pref("media.autoplay.default", 2); // 0=Allowed, 1=Blocked, 2=Prompt https://dxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/browser/app/profile/firefox.js#1484 https://dxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/browser/app/p...
  - Misdicorl 8y ago
    Curious: How is a prompt ever better than simply expecting the user to click the play button?
    - daleharvey 8y ago
      We thought it could let users enable it for sites where they wanted it as a feature (netflix, youtube, games etc) Turned out to be wrong, thats why we will be shipping blocked by default
      - Misdicorl 8y ago
        Ah, didn't realize the prompt would save per site and not re-prompt. I can see how that might be useful for some people. btw: Love Firefox, thanks for working on it =).

QML 8y ago

Doesn’t Safari prevent videos from auto-playing?

FPGAhacker 8y ago
Not in my experience, although I thought it was supposed to.
- chipotle_coyote 8y ago
  It's an option under "Websites" in "Preferences"; the options are "Never Auto-Play," "Always Auto-Play," and "Stop Media with Sound." The latter is the default. You can set a default for all web sites, and add override settings for specific sites. (There's actually a wealth of stuff in this preference tab: you can set defaults and per-site overrides for content blockers, page zoom levels, camera and microphone, defaulting to "Reader View" for particularly annoying sites, and so on.)
  - FPGAhacker 8y ago
    thanks!
- sirn 8y ago
  Safari actually maintains a list of websites where they allow auto-play by default at ~/Library/Safari/SitesAllowedToAutoplay.plist. Most of them are video sites, such as YouTube, Twitch, Netflix, Nicovideo, etc. but they also have some non-video sites that heavily uses video, such as Amazon. It's a binary plist, but you can view the content using: plutil -p ~/Library/Safari/SitesAllowedToAutoplay.plist

pbhjpbhj 8y ago

Mozilla get all their money from Google, don't they? Seems like that's probably the only reasonable "reason"? Presumably they publish meeting minutes where such decisions are made?

pbhjpbhj 8y ago
Not sure how you can disagree with a question, but I looked it up: >"Back in 2014, the last year of the Google deal, that agreement brought in $323 million of the foundation’s $330 million in total revenue." They had deal with Yahoo for similar money, and walked from that to go to Google again. For financials I can find they got all but 2% of their money from Google. Presumably for this money Google gets to call some shots like no default blocking off their ads, and, I'd imagine autoplay as default if that's important to Google. I'd expect a supposedly open foundation like Mozilla to publish details of major decisions. You're not open without transparency.

ryacko 8y ago

Autoplay pads ad viewing numbers. Ad firms are probably paying Mozilla to include it.

daleharvey 8y ago

I introduced the change to 0,1,2. Not sure what happened when we first introduced autoplay but the change to 0,1,2 was so we could let users switch between enabled, disabled and ask the user. Original plan was to ask the user by default. We did some user testing with this change and it looks like we will be changing it to block by default based on feedback Not sure what this has to do with any companies ad revenue, or pocket

mancerayder 8y ago
That's good news, and I'm glad to hear that user feedback is considered. Thanks for your efforts and your response!
nothrabannosir 8y ago
Even for YouTube?
- daleharvey 8y ago
  Yes, we dont have any whitelist / blacklist of sites we treat differently
  - nothrabannosir 8y ago
    That's.. big. Congratulations on managing to stay true to the numbers, and out of corporate influence. And thank you.
  - halfjoking 8y ago
    I hope there's a bigger backlash to Google blacklisting/whitelisting certain features on websites they deem worthy/unworthy. It's one thing to discriminate against certain sites in Search, where Google owns the webpages and servers. But to discriminate against the open web so that their services have an advantage over startups and smaller publishers is beyond unethical. At this point they're starting to act like a monopolistic ISP and should be called out for it.
dredmorbius 8y ago

yason 8y ago

Autoplay is the last straw, I'm at the verge of migrating to Firefox for my primary browser because it seems Chromium just can't keep those damn videos from playing and more often than not the videos seem to steal keyboard too. When space, shift-space, arrow up and down stop working because of a <video> element that's a good point to decide the browser is broken.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]