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Same here. I didn't realize tabs playing music was such a rampant problem that needed to be addressed. The supervised users feature has a lot of appeal to me as

Same here. I didn't realize tabs playing music was such a rampant problem that needed to be addressed. The supervised users feature has a lot of appeal to me as well. My kids' computer (Mac Mini) has Chrome set as the default browser. I'll need to look into this more closely.

sentenza 13y ago
Initially, I also wondered how many people have the noise problem. So far, the only way I managed to maneuver myself into that situation in Firefox is by having a few hundred tabs open (enough to make FF become sluggish and unresponsive) and then clicking around too much in an unresponsive interval. In that situation, I'd end up with some tabs, unknown to me, that I had accidentally clicked, which then start playing youtube videos. There might, however, be more exposure to this problem for people who don't use adblockplus and noscript. I'm just not sure how. You'd open a bunch of tabs and then a few seconds later one of them would start blabbing?
- djur 13y ago
  It's almost entirely due to ads, and this exact problem drove me to using adblock after years of avoiding it. Sometimes it just happens in the background at random, and sometimes it happens when loading bookmark groups. It's not really a sufficient solution for me. I'd prefer to explicitly allow tabs to play sound. I believe Firefox experimented with that approach and found users didn't like it, though.
- simcop2387 13y ago
  There's been a number of ads and things on pages like cnn.com that'll start playing something to make noise, while being below the fold just so you'll have to go looking for it to stop it. I've seen it go in and out in cycles depending on the page and what you view.
- jack-r-abbit 13y ago
  I guess I just don't use my browser the same way. I don't typically have more than 15-20 tabs open but I very rarely have a tab open that I'm unaware of. I must also manage to avoid all the annoying sites that use ads that play automatically. I don't use adblock or noscript and I think I can count on one hand the number of times I've had an ad play on its own. And it was always pretty easy to spot and rectify. I wonder how many tabs you can open before the tabs become too narrow and this new speaker icon goes away. Or maybe it would take the place of the favicon on a really narrow tab.
  - jaredsohn 13y ago
    >I wonder how many tabs you can open before the tabs become too narrow and this new speaker icon goes away. Or maybe it would take the place of the favicon on a really narrow tab. I just experimented with the beta and found that as the tabs narrow, it over time does change prioritization between the favicon, title, and audio indicator. On my 15" Mac Book Pro, once I hit about 40 tabs in one window I can no longer see the audio indicators. I think Chrome will need to show the user an overview of audio indicators (similar to what I attempted to do in my MuteTab Chrome extension.) You can get some information at chrome://media-internals but 1) that isn't user facing and 2) it doesn't let you perform commands. I would have to guess the reason this hasn't happened is because Chrome works really hard to provide users with a minimal interface; perhaps they could provide an audio API and let people who care about this install an extension?
- spoiler 13y ago
  The thing that springs to mind relating relating to the music problem is: tumblr blogs. I've been a few times in a situation that I opened a tumblr blog (fandom blog) to read some news about a TV show, just to forget about the tab later. It sometimes takes a few minutes for the files to download (not sure why either, maybe there is an artificial delay added) and they start playing randomly, and then you're left wondering what the hell is happening. Granted, it happened only once or twice.
27182818284 13y ago
>Same here. I didn't realize tabs playing music was such a rampant problem It is actually a problem I've wanted a fix for since, I don't know, maybe Phoenix .9 or whatever first introduced me to tabbed browsing in the world. this is a huge feature. I suspect the other browsers will try to follow too, if they aren't already in their dev/bleedingedge repos.
- jack-r-abbit 13y ago
  I'm curious how many times a day you run into an issue of having a tab play sounds and you can't figure out which one it is.
  - montag 13y ago
    This is a poor way to assess the value of a feature. How many times a day do you use your windshield wipers?
    - jack-r-abbit 13y ago
      I wasn't using it to asses the value of the feature in general. I was just curious how often that user ran into the problem that makes it a problem they have been trying to find a fix for since the beginning of tabbed browsing. A tiny annoyance that happens 10 times a day, everyday? A huge annoyance that has happened only twice... but just got him fired from his job? This person made it sound pretty serious to them so I was trying to get a better understanding of what they thought was serious. The issue is so not serious to me that it is not even an issue. Not wanting to sit with just a sample of 1, I thought I'd try to get additional info. But since you asked... there have been many times when I used my wipers thousands of times each day for several days on end. But we're experiencing a bit of a drought right now so I've not used them in a couple months.
      - DanBC 13y ago
        Some people on HN open very many tabs. Like, over one hundred open tabs. So I guess those people find it hard to find the noisy tab. Also, some things are kind of frustrating, but not frustrating enough to bother spending ages fixing it. Quite often something will happen and I'll think "there must be a fix. I just don't know the OS enough yet" - and sometimes there is a really easy fix and sometimes there is an ugly 3rd party kludge. While the problem is kind of annoying having a fix just fixes the problem, while searching for a fix teaches me more. (Am I making any sense? Its about the journey not the destination).

sentenza 13y ago

Initially, I also wondered how many people have the noise problem. So far, the only way I managed to maneuver myself into that situation in Firefox is by having a few hundred tabs open (enough to make FF become sluggish and unresponsive) and then clicking around too much in an unresponsive interval. In that situation, I'd end up with some tabs, unknown to me, that I had accidentally clicked, which then start playing youtube videos. There might, however, be more exposure to this problem for people who don't use adblockplus and noscript. I'm just not sure how. You'd open a bunch of tabs and then a few seconds later one of them would start blabbing?

djur 13y ago
It's almost entirely due to ads, and this exact problem drove me to using adblock after years of avoiding it. Sometimes it just happens in the background at random, and sometimes it happens when loading bookmark groups. It's not really a sufficient solution for me. I'd prefer to explicitly allow tabs to play sound. I believe Firefox experimented with that approach and found users didn't like it, though.
simcop2387 13y ago
There's been a number of ads and things on pages like cnn.com that'll start playing something to make noise, while being below the fold just so you'll have to go looking for it to stop it. I've seen it go in and out in cycles depending on the page and what you view.
jack-r-abbit 13y ago
I guess I just don't use my browser the same way. I don't typically have more than 15-20 tabs open but I very rarely have a tab open that I'm unaware of. I must also manage to avoid all the annoying sites that use ads that play automatically. I don't use adblock or noscript and I think I can count on one hand the number of times I've had an ad play on its own. And it was always pretty easy to spot and rectify. I wonder how many tabs you can open before the tabs become too narrow and this new speaker icon goes away. Or maybe it would take the place of the favicon on a really narrow tab.
- jaredsohn 13y ago
  >I wonder how many tabs you can open before the tabs become too narrow and this new speaker icon goes away. Or maybe it would take the place of the favicon on a really narrow tab. I just experimented with the beta and found that as the tabs narrow, it over time does change prioritization between the favicon, title, and audio indicator. On my 15" Mac Book Pro, once I hit about 40 tabs in one window I can no longer see the audio indicators. I think Chrome will need to show the user an overview of audio indicators (similar to what I attempted to do in my MuteTab Chrome extension.) You can get some information at chrome://media-internals but 1) that isn't user facing and 2) it doesn't let you perform commands. I would have to guess the reason this hasn't happened is because Chrome works really hard to provide users with a minimal interface; perhaps they could provide an audio API and let people who care about this install an extension?
spoiler 13y ago
The thing that springs to mind relating relating to the music problem is: tumblr blogs. I've been a few times in a situation that I opened a tumblr blog (fandom blog) to read some news about a TV show, just to forget about the tab later. It sometimes takes a few minutes for the files to download (not sure why either, maybe there is an artificial delay added) and they start playing randomly, and then you're left wondering what the hell is happening. Granted, it happened only once or twice.

27182818284 13y ago

>Same here. I didn't realize tabs playing music was such a rampant problem It is actually a problem I've wanted a fix for since, I don't know, maybe Phoenix .9 or whatever first introduced me to tabbed browsing in the world. this is a huge feature. I suspect the other browsers will try to follow too, if they aren't already in their dev/bleedingedge repos.

jack-r-abbit 13y ago
I'm curious how many times a day you run into an issue of having a tab play sounds and you can't figure out which one it is.
- montag 13y ago
  This is a poor way to assess the value of a feature. How many times a day do you use your windshield wipers?
  - jack-r-abbit 13y ago
    I wasn't using it to asses the value of the feature in general. I was just curious how often that user ran into the problem that makes it a problem they have been trying to find a fix for since the beginning of tabbed browsing. A tiny annoyance that happens 10 times a day, everyday? A huge annoyance that has happened only twice... but just got him fired from his job? This person made it sound pretty serious to them so I was trying to get a better understanding of what they thought was serious. The issue is so not serious to me that it is not even an issue. Not wanting to sit with just a sample of 1, I thought I'd try to get additional info. But since you asked... there have been many times when I used my wipers thousands of times each day for several days on end. But we're experiencing a bit of a drought right now so I've not used them in a couple months.
    - DanBC 13y ago
      Some people on HN open very many tabs. Like, over one hundred open tabs. So I guess those people find it hard to find the noisy tab. Also, some things are kind of frustrating, but not frustrating enough to bother spending ages fixing it. Quite often something will happen and I'll think "there must be a fix. I just don't know the OS enough yet" - and sometimes there is a really easy fix and sometimes there is an ugly 3rd party kludge. While the problem is kind of annoying having a fix just fixes the problem, while searching for a fix teaches me more. (Am I making any sense? Its about the journey not the destination).