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> If you disable muted video people will just use GIFs instead Let them. And we'll fight that too. We are all still not closing pop-up windows like the yestery

> If you disable muted video people will just use GIFs instead Let them. And we'll fight that too. We are all still not closing pop-up windows like the yesteryears of the internet because we refused to accept it.

untog 8y ago
Who is "we"? Because the vast majority of users love their animated GIFs. Just look at any social media site. Pop-up windows were easier to banish because people didn't want them. Autoplay, with-sound video too. But animated GIFs are popular. Personally I don't care for them. I don't care for emojis either but good luck to anyone who wants to take either away from users, particularly in a competitive product like a web browser where users can just switch to an alternative.
- dan1234 8y ago
  I’d be fine with either whitelisting sites or having a button on each gif which starts the animation.
  - endless1234 8y ago
    Ok, but that's not the point though? The assumption is that The Average User wants these soundless video gif-likes to autoplay. But The Average User never wanted popups. If you don't want them to autoplay, there probably is a setting or extension for it.
  - shawnz 8y ago
    That would be way too complicated for the average user who wants their gifs to play. Given what you want is atypical, isn't it reasonable to expect you to configure it manually? Why should everyone else have to manually enable gifs when that is by far the more common preference?
    - lugg 8y ago
      Is it? Where are you guys getting your stats in this? Personally I feel like gifs are annoying and distracting.
      - shawnz 8y ago
        Come on, be realistic. Tumblr didn't become a billion dollar business just by having good SEO. Lots of people enjoy scrolling through pages of gifs and they won't be satisfied with click-to-play on 100 different 5 second long animations.
- webmobdev 8y ago
  > Because the vast majority of users love their animated GIFs. Then they can choose to play it. Just like you can opt to allow pop-ups in your browser. Nobody is asking for a one-size-fit-all solution - all they are asking for is choice and control over their browser.
  - untog 8y ago
    > Nobody is asking for a one-size-fit-all solution Right, because that isn't possible. Instead you choose sensible defaults that match what users want. Like it or not, the majority of users want autoplaying GIFs. > all they are asking for is choice and control over their browser. Which you have. It's a configuration option to disable autoplaying muted video.
    - lugg 8y ago
      > the majority of users want autoplaying GIFs. That's an assumption. If you ask users if they want gifs or no auto playing video ads they will choose the latter. And if they don't, so what let them choose.
      - codetrotter 8y ago
        > If you ask users if they want gifs or no auto playing video ads they will choose the latter. And that’s a false equivalence. I am able to block annoying ads with an adblocker and simultaneously enjoy my desired auto playing muted videos just fine.
    - marcosdumay 8y ago
      > It's a configuration option to disable autoplaying muted video. Please, what is the name of this one now? And do you know one for disabling autoplaying GIFs too? EDIT: Oh, it's media.autoplay.enabled, another discussion has it. Thank you for pointing it anyway.
roca 8y ago
If you block animated GIFs, then sites will load a set of images and use DOM APIs to flip through them. Or perhaps they'll write their own video decoder in JS and draw frames to a <canvas>. All of these are much worse for users than letting the site use a proper video codec. So "fighting that too" ultimately means blocking by default either Javascript or all images. Good luck with that in a mainstream browser.
- lugg 8y ago
  You do realise reloading 100 images in JS would be easy for the browser to detect and just disable JS when it finds that happening. I.e. similar to how pop up blocking works. Detect misbehaving, prevent it, ask user to allow it. Same goes for canvas misuse same goes for bandwidth misuse. Fighting that too is exactly what we need. Don't be such a push over. For what it's worth, disabling JS today is actually more reasonable than it was 10 years ago. CSS and HTML actually gets you most of the way there now. (Talking about news style/blog sites, not web apps) Maybe we should be aiming for that?
  - pcwalton 8y ago
    > You do realise reloading 100 images in JS would be easy for the browser to detect and just disable JS when it finds that happening. Your proposal breaks Google Maps, as well as thousands of other sites, in order to implement an ineffective heuristic that pages can easily bypass by disguising image data as other data. > For what it's worth, disabling JS today is actually more reasonable than it was 10 years ago. CSS and HTML actually gets you most of the way there now. (Talking about news style/blog sites, not web apps) > Maybe we should be aiming for that? Trying to use 10% market share to push the Web to disable JS is a good way to make that market share 0%.
    - inferiorhuman 8y ago
      So come up with another way, maybe rate limit changing an image's source? Rate limit creating new, visible, image nodes? Just because ad pushers will try to work around something doesn't mean we should just give up. At some point the worsening user experience will negatively impact a site's reputation and people's willingness to view/use it. The other assumption here is that the bad actors are actually ad pushers. In fact somewhat reputable news sites like SFGate often push auto playing videos that take a few seconds to stop/close. The likelihood of SFGate, WaPo, or the BBC going to such lengths to display videos seems low — especially since the more aggressive solutions require more bandwidth.

untog 8y ago

Who is "we"? Because the vast majority of users love their animated GIFs. Just look at any social media site. Pop-up windows were easier to banish because people didn't want them. Autoplay, with-sound video too. But animated GIFs are popular. Personally I don't care for them. I don't care for emojis either but good luck to anyone who wants to take either away from users, particularly in a competitive product like a web browser where users can just switch to an alternative.

dan1234 8y ago
I’d be fine with either whitelisting sites or having a button on each gif which starts the animation.
- endless1234 8y ago
  Ok, but that's not the point though? The assumption is that The Average User wants these soundless video gif-likes to autoplay. But The Average User never wanted popups. If you don't want them to autoplay, there probably is a setting or extension for it.
- shawnz 8y ago
  That would be way too complicated for the average user who wants their gifs to play. Given what you want is atypical, isn't it reasonable to expect you to configure it manually? Why should everyone else have to manually enable gifs when that is by far the more common preference?
  - lugg 8y ago
    Is it? Where are you guys getting your stats in this? Personally I feel like gifs are annoying and distracting.
    - shawnz 8y ago
      Come on, be realistic. Tumblr didn't become a billion dollar business just by having good SEO. Lots of people enjoy scrolling through pages of gifs and they won't be satisfied with click-to-play on 100 different 5 second long animations.
webmobdev 8y ago
> Because the vast majority of users love their animated GIFs. Then they can choose to play it. Just like you can opt to allow pop-ups in your browser. Nobody is asking for a one-size-fit-all solution - all they are asking for is choice and control over their browser.
- untog 8y ago
  > Nobody is asking for a one-size-fit-all solution Right, because that isn't possible. Instead you choose sensible defaults that match what users want. Like it or not, the majority of users want autoplaying GIFs. > all they are asking for is choice and control over their browser. Which you have. It's a configuration option to disable autoplaying muted video.
  - lugg 8y ago
    > the majority of users want autoplaying GIFs. That's an assumption. If you ask users if they want gifs or no auto playing video ads they will choose the latter. And if they don't, so what let them choose.
    - codetrotter 8y ago
      > If you ask users if they want gifs or no auto playing video ads they will choose the latter. And that’s a false equivalence. I am able to block annoying ads with an adblocker and simultaneously enjoy my desired auto playing muted videos just fine.
  - marcosdumay 8y ago
    > It's a configuration option to disable autoplaying muted video. Please, what is the name of this one now? And do you know one for disabling autoplaying GIFs too? EDIT: Oh, it's media.autoplay.enabled, another discussion has it. Thank you for pointing it anyway.

roca 8y ago

If you block animated GIFs, then sites will load a set of images and use DOM APIs to flip through them. Or perhaps they'll write their own video decoder in JS and draw frames to a <canvas>. All of these are much worse for users than letting the site use a proper video codec. So "fighting that too" ultimately means blocking by default either Javascript or all images. Good luck with that in a mainstream browser.

lugg 8y ago
You do realise reloading 100 images in JS would be easy for the browser to detect and just disable JS when it finds that happening. I.e. similar to how pop up blocking works. Detect misbehaving, prevent it, ask user to allow it. Same goes for canvas misuse same goes for bandwidth misuse. Fighting that too is exactly what we need. Don't be such a push over. For what it's worth, disabling JS today is actually more reasonable than it was 10 years ago. CSS and HTML actually gets you most of the way there now. (Talking about news style/blog sites, not web apps) Maybe we should be aiming for that?
- pcwalton 8y ago
  > You do realise reloading 100 images in JS would be easy for the browser to detect and just disable JS when it finds that happening. Your proposal breaks Google Maps, as well as thousands of other sites, in order to implement an ineffective heuristic that pages can easily bypass by disguising image data as other data. > For what it's worth, disabling JS today is actually more reasonable than it was 10 years ago. CSS and HTML actually gets you most of the way there now. (Talking about news style/blog sites, not web apps) > Maybe we should be aiming for that? Trying to use 10% market share to push the Web to disable JS is a good way to make that market share 0%.
  - inferiorhuman 8y ago
    So come up with another way, maybe rate limit changing an image's source? Rate limit creating new, visible, image nodes? Just because ad pushers will try to work around something doesn't mean we should just give up. At some point the worsening user experience will negatively impact a site's reputation and people's willingness to view/use it. The other assumption here is that the bad actors are actually ad pushers. In fact somewhat reputable news sites like SFGate often push auto playing videos that take a few seconds to stop/close. The likelihood of SFGate, WaPo, or the BBC going to such lengths to display videos seems low — especially since the more aggressive solutions require more bandwidth.