6 ms·

And a lot of things that are "animated gifs" really aren't animated gifs anymore, they're using audioless video players. So if you stopped autoplay, everything

And a lot of things that are "animated gifs" really aren't animated gifs anymore, they're using audioless video players. So if you stopped autoplay, everything from gfycat, imgur, and similar would stop playing.

jononor 8y ago
... until clicking the play button.
- 21 8y ago
  Or until the user switches to alternate browser like I will if Firefox doesn't autoplay soundless animations.
  - dgzl 8y ago
    It would take a lot more than that for me to switch from Firefox.
  - aaaaaaaaaaab 8y ago
    ok bye
    - dang 8y ago
      Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments so we don't have to ban you again? Your substantive posts are just fine. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- m-p-3 8y ago
  or if it allows to whitelist those domains.
- codetrotter 8y ago
  And when people browse Reddit, do you think they want to individually press play an extra time on each and every video that they look at? Of course they don’t! So everyone ITT saying that “nobody wants automatically playing videos”. Actually yeah, we do, and there are many, and I mean MANY of us.
  - jononor 8y ago
    Whitelist Reddit then. Or turn on autoplay for all websites.
    - bllguo 8y ago
      Or maybe we can take the current approach and leave a sensible default for the people who aren't savvy enough? And people like you and I can just toggle the option?
      - robryan 8y ago
        Do the majority really want autoplay? Facebook forced it on people and made it hard to find the disable option.
        wlesieutre 8y ago
        On pages that I go to specifically to play a media file, yes. Maybe a reasonable middle ground would be that each page can auto-play a single video element? There are probably uses that I'm not thinking of (or don't partake in) where this would still be a problem for people.
  - marcosdumay 8y ago
    Well, I'm the only person I know personally that spends time browsing reddit on his phones (because on a PC videos do not autoplay), and I've installed a different client mostly because it won't autoplay anything. But I do have a lot of friends that spend time browsing facebook, and not a single one likes autoplaying videos, either wanted or unwanted ones. Videos do not get into your screen at the same exact time you focus your attention on them. On the occasion that you'll want to watch the video, autoplaying just forces you to see a lot of out of context spoilers and video endings.
mulmen 8y ago
Sure but I prefer the Internet to look less like Imgur and gyfcat so that would be a feature.
- Franciscouzo 8y ago
  And you will be able by installing an addon, accept that you're a minority and most people want autoplay on their GIFs.
  - mulmen 8y ago
    Don’t tell me what to do.
  - rhizome 8y ago
    accept that you're a minority This seems like an assertion in advance of evidence. To be sure, the entire internet-using public does not get a vote on the issue, aside from browser configurations and plugins (which the people who deny us a vote pay PR agencies to hate). Just like in other instances of disenfranchisement, those who aren't allowed to vote are indeed considered to be "minorities," even if only in the amount of political power they wield.
    - CodeMage 8y ago
      Thank you for helping me realize what's been bothering me about software for the last decade or so. I've been experiencing an increasing apathy and dissatisfaction and I kept attributing it to "age" -- 40 is not that much, true, but I had no better hypothesis until now. Basically, what bothers me is that most of software being developed nowadays treats users like shit and the excuse is always along the same lines: "We ensure that we do what users want, by measuring their response, and if they didn't like it they would use something else". Turns out, you can't go anywhere else if everything is corrupted through same perverse incentives and you don't have the power to change it yourself. Back when most users were more computer-savvy, the users had more power. Obviously, we can't go back to computers being mostly a hobby for geeks, but there has to be some kind of a solution to put more power in users' hands. I just can't think of one.
swebs 8y ago
That sounds amazing. The only thing worse that autoplaying videos is 30 of them autoplaying at the same time. Let users opt-in to autoplay rather than opt-out.
- wlesieutre 8y ago
  10% of users will be thrilled and the rest will switch back to Chrome where the internet still works how they expect it to.
  - hiccuphippo 8y ago
    What was the reason that made the hypothetical 90% go for Firefox in the first place? This seems like the kind of feature one would expect when installing Firefox.
    - wlesieutre 8y ago
      Mobile addons, privacy respecting defaults, not wanting you to be logged into a Google account all the time? I don't think "makes imgur gifs stop playing" is going to attract more users than it drives away. By all means have that as an option, but it'd be a terrible default experience.
  - plopz 8y ago
    Mozilla demonstrated they don't care about retaining old users when they broke all the extensions in 57.
    - wlesieutre 8y ago
      If you made videos stop playing, users could switch to Chrome as a fix when their gifs stopped playing. Firefox 57 changed to using a more limited extension system like Chrome already had, so it's not like users could jump ship to Chrome to get back Firefox 56's more powerful extensions. You may not have liked or agreed with that change, but I don't think it actually drove people to alternative browsers. If anything they might have said "Well, I have to going extension browsing anyway to find new ones that work, maybe I'll take a look at the options in Chrome too."
wehere1111 8y ago
you're just repeating the previous comment
mancerayder 8y ago
They would stop playing? Sounds like a feature, not a bug!
DanBC 8y ago
> everything from gfycat, imgur, and similar would stop playing. Yes, this would be what I want.
- SilasX 8y ago
  Agreed, but when I (pre-66) disabled animations, I didn't see an obvious UX element for "no, go ahead, this one's cool". Edit: Actually, it seemed to be hit-or-miss. Some gifs work, some refuse to play at all.

jononor 8y ago

... until clicking the play button.

21 8y ago
Or until the user switches to alternate browser like I will if Firefox doesn't autoplay soundless animations.
- dgzl 8y ago
  It would take a lot more than that for me to switch from Firefox.
- aaaaaaaaaaab 8y ago
  ok bye
  - dang 8y ago
    Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments so we don't have to ban you again? Your substantive posts are just fine. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
m-p-3 8y ago
or if it allows to whitelist those domains.
codetrotter 8y ago
And when people browse Reddit, do you think they want to individually press play an extra time on each and every video that they look at? Of course they don’t! So everyone ITT saying that “nobody wants automatically playing videos”. Actually yeah, we do, and there are many, and I mean MANY of us.
- jononor 8y ago
  Whitelist Reddit then. Or turn on autoplay for all websites.
  - bllguo 8y ago
    Or maybe we can take the current approach and leave a sensible default for the people who aren't savvy enough? And people like you and I can just toggle the option?
    - robryan 8y ago
      Do the majority really want autoplay? Facebook forced it on people and made it hard to find the disable option.
      - wlesieutre 8y ago
        On pages that I go to specifically to play a media file, yes. Maybe a reasonable middle ground would be that each page can auto-play a single video element? There are probably uses that I'm not thinking of (or don't partake in) where this would still be a problem for people.
- marcosdumay 8y ago
  Well, I'm the only person I know personally that spends time browsing reddit on his phones (because on a PC videos do not autoplay), and I've installed a different client mostly because it won't autoplay anything. But I do have a lot of friends that spend time browsing facebook, and not a single one likes autoplaying videos, either wanted or unwanted ones. Videos do not get into your screen at the same exact time you focus your attention on them. On the occasion that you'll want to watch the video, autoplaying just forces you to see a lot of out of context spoilers and video endings.

mulmen 8y ago

Sure but I prefer the Internet to look less like Imgur and gyfcat so that would be a feature.

Franciscouzo 8y ago
And you will be able by installing an addon, accept that you're a minority and most people want autoplay on their GIFs.
- mulmen 8y ago
  Don’t tell me what to do.
- rhizome 8y ago
  accept that you're a minority This seems like an assertion in advance of evidence. To be sure, the entire internet-using public does not get a vote on the issue, aside from browser configurations and plugins (which the people who deny us a vote pay PR agencies to hate). Just like in other instances of disenfranchisement, those who aren't allowed to vote are indeed considered to be "minorities," even if only in the amount of political power they wield.
  - CodeMage 8y ago
    Thank you for helping me realize what's been bothering me about software for the last decade or so. I've been experiencing an increasing apathy and dissatisfaction and I kept attributing it to "age" -- 40 is not that much, true, but I had no better hypothesis until now. Basically, what bothers me is that most of software being developed nowadays treats users like shit and the excuse is always along the same lines: "We ensure that we do what users want, by measuring their response, and if they didn't like it they would use something else". Turns out, you can't go anywhere else if everything is corrupted through same perverse incentives and you don't have the power to change it yourself. Back when most users were more computer-savvy, the users had more power. Obviously, we can't go back to computers being mostly a hobby for geeks, but there has to be some kind of a solution to put more power in users' hands. I just can't think of one.

swebs 8y ago

That sounds amazing. The only thing worse that autoplaying videos is 30 of them autoplaying at the same time. Let users opt-in to autoplay rather than opt-out.

wlesieutre 8y ago
10% of users will be thrilled and the rest will switch back to Chrome where the internet still works how they expect it to.
- hiccuphippo 8y ago
  What was the reason that made the hypothetical 90% go for Firefox in the first place? This seems like the kind of feature one would expect when installing Firefox.
  - wlesieutre 8y ago
    Mobile addons, privacy respecting defaults, not wanting you to be logged into a Google account all the time? I don't think "makes imgur gifs stop playing" is going to attract more users than it drives away. By all means have that as an option, but it'd be a terrible default experience.
- plopz 8y ago
  Mozilla demonstrated they don't care about retaining old users when they broke all the extensions in 57.
  - wlesieutre 8y ago
    If you made videos stop playing, users could switch to Chrome as a fix when their gifs stopped playing. Firefox 57 changed to using a more limited extension system like Chrome already had, so it's not like users could jump ship to Chrome to get back Firefox 56's more powerful extensions. You may not have liked or agreed with that change, but I don't think it actually drove people to alternative browsers. If anything they might have said "Well, I have to going extension browsing anyway to find new ones that work, maybe I'll take a look at the options in Chrome too."

wehere1111 8y ago

you're just repeating the previous comment

mancerayder 8y ago

They would stop playing? Sounds like a feature, not a bug!

DanBC 8y ago

> everything from gfycat, imgur, and similar would stop playing. Yes, this would be what I want.

SilasX 8y ago
Agreed, but when I (pre-66) disabled animations, I didn't see an obvious UX element for "no, go ahead, this one's cool". Edit: Actually, it seemed to be hit-or-miss. Some gifs work, some refuse to play at all.