12 ms·
Everyone can now track down noisy tabs
- ereckers 13y agoNow if you can just mute it directly from the tab they'd really be onto something.
- JTon 13y agoAgreed. This is a good start though. It's features like this that makes the utilitarian in me nod in approval.
- joshdick 13y agoYou can: by closing the tab. Which is what I plan to do to any tab that plays sound I didn't ask for.
- deletes 13y agoI would prefer preventing audio + video to start on a tab that is not selected.
- JoshTriplett 13y agoThat would also prevent using a web browser to run a music player in the background.
- deletes 13y agoNote the phrase preventing to start. Already playing media would be unaffected. +: Also the rule would be extended to include minimized browser even if the tab is selected.
- jayd16 13y agoWhat does that even mean? You can't stop at a single file or stream as that would most likely still break things. If you allow tabs that play sound to continue to play sound you could just run a small, short, silent sound file on page load and then do whatever you want for the life of the tab.
- gibybo 13y agoI think you could mitigate the 'play short/silent sound on page load'. Each tab would have a max volume limit. The limit can be increased automatically while the tab is open, but it must stay within some % of that limit when the tab is not open. The default limit would be 0. You can add some restraints on the length of sound too, like require a sound to play for at least a second before adopting its new volume for the tab.
- valarauca1 13y agoDoes a similar feature exist in firefox? Or even as an addon? Several searches couldn't yield a result.
- sleazebreeze 13y agoIn Windows 7 at least, Firefox breaks out each tab into its own subpanel in the Volume Mixer and each instance of Flash (for example) that might be producing sound. It's pretty easy from there to determine which tab is making a racket.
- jaredsohn 13y agoReally? My understanding was the IE was the only major browser that would use multiple Flash instances. You may have just noticed a difference between HTML5 audio/HTML5 video/web audio and sound from plug-ins. (I can check later when near a Windows box.) Also, I'm generally curious about how IE is able to get away with this since I think the Chrome team said creating multiple Flash instances wasn't reliable because Flash wasn't designed for it in some way (in addition to eating a lot of memory.)
- sleazebreeze 13y agoApologies, I was wrong - that's what I get for posting without checking what I'd seen before. You are right, only one Flash instance shows up for multiple sources playing audio/video.
- conductor 13y agoHere is the feature request in Firefox's Bugzilla: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=486262 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=486262
- padenot 13y agoSo, I've got a little hacky patch that _kind of_ does that, but only for <video> and <audio>, because we don't have access to flash's source code, so we can't hook into it. This (only <audio> + <video> + Web Audio these days) is not really hard to do, I can guide a volunteer if someone feels like writing the patch (or part of it, even). I've been thinking about dll interception stuff to make it work with flash, but I'm not sure if it can be done reliably.
- junto 13y agoAs a parent I was more interested in the "supervised users" feature to monitor your children's internet usage. Parents desperately need something simple to help them make sure that their children are safe on the internet. Most solutions are far too technical for most parents to understand and their children are more technically aware than they are, even at a young age. It is of course important that parents can educate their children about the dangers of the internet, but such a feature is like having stabilisers on a bike. Once your children show you that they can be trusted the you can take the supervision off and give them the privacy they they too deserve. I think Google is hitting a sweet spot if they can get that feature right. http://chrome.blogspot.de/2013/10/a-beta-preview-supervised-users.html http://chrome.blogspot.de/2013/10/a-beta-preview-supervised-...
- avighnay 13y agoEchoes with all parents for sure
- CamperBob2 13y agoNot all. As a kid, I was taught that information wasn't dangerous.
- jack-r-abbit 13y agoAs a parent, I have learned that not every mind at every age is equipped to process every bit of information out there without some guidance. Misinformation can be dangerous. Information out of context can be dangerous. Information in ill-prepared hands can be dangerous. The word is mightier than the sword - Ahiqar The feature is called "supervised users" not "locked in a tower users". So information can flow however the supervisor wishes. It could be simply a "monitor & discuss" role where seeing the user's browser history gives the supervisor information about what the user has been reading and they initiate a conversation about it. It doesn't have to lead to blocking and restriction. It can be another tool for parents to use to teach their children.
- 13y ago
- daremo_ 13y ago"On the desktop, we’ve updated the default styling of UI elements like form controls and scrollbars" They kept that one quiet didn't they. A strange "feature" addition that's starting to cause quite an uproar on the Chromium issue tracker: https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=279464 https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=279464
- binarycrusader 13y agoI'm surprised this doesn't interfere with accessibility guidelines.
- cpeterso 13y agoChrome's scrollbar changes or the non-native Aura UI itself?
- binarycrusader 13y agoBoth sets of changes, but in particular, the scrollbar changes.
- dmunoz 13y agoFrom the issue tracker: > In UI review we decided that these scrollbars are OK for an M32 release, and that if there's bad user uproar we can live with it for one milestone then change in M33. I wonder how pervasive this view is within the Chrome team. It actually explains a lot of issues I have run into that suddenly get fixed in the next release. I thought they were just bugs that had slipped by, but now am wondering how many were by design.
- joering2 13y agoWas about to say but didnt want to hijack the topic. Also there is plenty of problems with low-level graphics cards rendering links and bold text. It looks very blurry now.
- codezero 13y agoCan anyone explain the use case for the arrows as opposed to using keyboard arrows? Removing them seems like a great step, but I might be brainwashed by the fact that Mac OS has done away with them already.
- jeorgun 13y agoWait, did they just release the Aura/ChromeOS desktop as a Metro app?
- zastrowm 13y agoIt kind of seems that way. I was wondering the same thing so I tried out - sure enough, launching it in metro mode and it looks like what I expect ChromeOS would be (I don't actually have a device running ChromeOS), with an apps bar, a clock, and "start/apps" button.
- Magi604 13y agoI noticed this not too long ago. It's a very welcome addition since there are so many audio/video ads that autoplay these days.
- jackocnr 13y agoFinally! I have wanted this feature since I started using tabs, about 10 years ago. Yet another win for Chrome.
- nfoz 13y agoAlternatively, we could have designed the web so that autoplay of audio/video isn't a thing.
- TazeTSchnitzel 13y agoAutoplay provides better UX for some sites, though.
- noname123 13y agoGood feature, but to take it one step further. I'd like to request an auto-mute feature filtered by domain names. Why? Too often, when you are surfing on streaming movie sites and porn sites, you are forced to disable AdBlock in order for the videos to load properly; but you'd get those annoying popup tabs in the backgrounds with JasmineCam for porn sites and P&G/J&J household product ads for movie streaming sites. I'd like to mute those tabs right away and also right click and add them to the "mute audio list". Someone with the pull, please add this to the Chromium project tracker!
- jcampbell1 13y agoThis feature should be implemented as an extension. The only reasonable thing to request in the project tracker is to have the audio status available in the extension api.
- swamp40 13y agoWhy don't they just give you the option to only play the video/audio when the tab is active? Facebook already auto-starts some videos only when they are in view, so the technology is available. If you want streaming audio, you just have to open up a new window.
- acqq 13y agoExactly: let the user decide "I need this thing to keep playing music/video in the background." But unless he enables it, play it only when it's topmost.
- zavi 13y agoLots of people stream Pandora and YouTube in background. Few people use new windows. Adding a control for users to decide would sacrifice simplicity of UX.
- nairteashop 13y agoDoes someone know how this feature works? I thought this was difficult/impossible to do because plugins like flash communicate directly with the OS APIs, bypassing Chrome (this was confirmed by the Chrome team in a reddit AMA a while back). I suppose this is possible with the Flash plugin that comes bundled with Chrome, but what about other plugins, like Java? Edit: never mind, found this on omgchrome: "the indicator will be successfully triggered by most browser audio...this means the flash version that comes built-in with Chrome, HTML5 content and apps making use of PPAPI/NACL plugins. But a few things aren't picked up, including anything making use of "out of Chrome" plugins, like Silverlight and Quicktime."
- piyush_soni 13y agoThis is Brilliant! My reasons to continue using Firefox are reducing by day :(.
- laureny 13y agoThis only goes half way, sadly: noisy tabs will only be shown with the symbol in your Window list if they are the active window in that tab. If you have another tab open, it's that tab that will appear there, so you will still have to hunt down all your windows and then look for a tab with the symbol. Disappointing. Similarly, I can't believe it's still not possible to name an entire window, e.g. "Hacker News", which would contain all my open HN tabs.
- ChristianMarks 13y agoExcellent. Could have used this feature when AOL acquired the Huffington Post.
- operanotgoogle 13y agowhat's with the submission's titles ? This one is obviously marketing aka false. I'm using opera on linux to browse the web, how a new feature in chrome affects me ?
- jaredsohn 13y agoThe submission title comes from the source webpage. (Look at the source URL for context.) It says "everyone" because the previous announcement was that people using the beta version had this feature.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- deepak365 13y agoThis works well in Ubuntu too.
- unicornporn 13y agoSo, if I'm researching and I have ~40 tabs open, what will be visible? I already have trouble seing the tab titles. Modern desktop displays are wider than they ought to be. Vertical space is scarce while there's almost always space left on the sides. I still can't grasp that they scratched the vertical tabs feature, because it made total sense. The reason I'm on Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/sv-se/firefox/addon/tree-style-tab/ https://addons.mozilla.org/sv-se/firefox/addon/tree-style-ta...
- dredmorbius 13y agoClose but no cigar. Unless I specify otherwise, media should play in a window only when it's active, unless I specify otherwise. Media should not play automatically by default. Again, unless I've activated it. A bigger issue is that browsers are absolute crap for managing content generally. My typical session is: start with a few launching points (project pages, wiki/blog, newsreader, possibly social page), queue up material to look at. At this point, my preference would be that the material I've queued up doesn't even fucking load. Too many pages and too much memory simply pigs stuff out. Most browsers currently have a "pin as app" option for tabs -- if you want your GitHub, CampFire, Jira, Gmail, or similar pages to run as apps, then set them to run as apps. Unfortunately, the browser has, for some time, been stuck in a worst-of-all-possible-worlds limbo: it's neither a good reading environment -- for that you'd want something like Readability, Pocket, Instapaper, or an eBook management tool such as Moon+Reader, Kindle, or (bad as it is) Calibre -- nor a decent applications environment: it's bloated, crash-prone, slow, full of security holes, and underfeatured relative to native applications. However in both cases the browser's ability to load and display or run arbitrary content makes it convenient. What do I want? Vastly better content management tools. Bookmarks and tab management on steroids. As Jay-Z said: I've got 99 tabs open and your autoplay isn't the one I'm looking at. If something's in background, let it fucking die already, saving state somewhere and restoring it should I happen to navigate back to it. Keeping a small number of tabs (2? 6? 12?) active should be more than enough. Least used gets offed when I switch to number n+1. And figure out what the hell you want to do with the applications space. I do use some Web apps, but still largely find them annoying. I've all but given up on G+ and Gmail for numerous reasons, but the fact that my Chromium session becomes completely unusable once I've got either open really doesn't help matters much. Frankly, this is like providing cleaner, brighter living quarters for slaves when what needs to be done is emancipation. I appreciate the thought, but it's far too little, far too late.
- makmanalp 13y agoI can't help but wonder if it's too late for that at this point. Users expect a page to be "loading" while they're not looking at it. Loading and running both swf and javascript often takes part as the initialization of the page. It's frustrating to a user when they open multiple tabs and expect them to be loaded by the time they switch to one, but the page is just now starting to load. Maybe this is a symptom of the fact that loading orders, preloading, etc isn't built into the standard, but is hacked on top?
- drdaeman 13y agoSo, assuming I'm using Chrome, how do I download malicious file now? (Assuming, I know it's malware but still want to download it, say, for further dissection.)
- mnw21cam 13y agowget. curl. Seriously, if you're dealing with malicious files, you don't want some massive software package interacting with it. Attack surface area, and all that.