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Comment by waltbosz | Hacker News Reader

How about an extension that disables video elements until you click on them ... Like how Internet Explorer treated Java applets towards the end on their days.

You could add a whitelist feature to the extension for YouTube et al.

Sure, it would be nice if websites didn't do shitty UX, but as others have said, don't visit those sites.

The other extension idea I had was one which would reference a database of sites known to use dark UX, and warn you not to click thru.

I myself run a userscript on Google that removes results from websites that I'd prefer to avoid.

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You know, Firefox has that option right at the settings window. And if there's audio, it blocks by default.

Websites still find their way around this setting. I think they put an overlay on the page and intercept the first mouse event they can, and use that to start playing the video.

I usually just blacklist these websites in my Pihole.

> I think they put an overlay on the page and intercept the first mouse event they can,

...such as one of those "totally-GDPR-compliant" accept-cookies-please modals maybe? :) I am 100% certain this is how a large number of sites bypass autoplay restrictions.

There's an old add-on, Disable HTML5 Autoplay, that still works most of the time and can whitelist sites.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/disable-autop...

I swear Safari used to block autoplay-with-audio, and it recently stopped blocking it. I remember this because I specifically needed to set audio to disabled to get a video clip to autoplay on my blog (basically just a more efficient GIF).

In theory, in practice videos can be rendered on the fly into image or canvas elements, either via JavaScript or WebAssembly. :)

Or even better, endless server stream for an animated gif.

> How about an extension that disables video elements until you click on them ... Like how Internet Explorer treated Java applets towards the end on their days.

No.

Short MP4 files should replace GIFs. MP4 files are more efficient than the terrible compression GIF files have. I've made a few video game pages where auto-playing MP4s were essential at giving the right message... discussion of tactics and "movement" of dynamic video game stuff is pretty common. (Any game requires the player to gain instincts that "predict the future", and short GIFs and/or MP4 files really help show off key moments).

Factorio thing I wrote a while back:

https://factorioguide.nfshost.com/backpressure.html

> auto-playing MP4s were essential

I never want auto playing videos. Ever. It is my personal preference and i should be able to express that in my browser, overriding your preference, as the author of the web page.

Do you have the same preference for auto-playing GIFs? If so then yes, we agree—users should be able to customize their user agent to serve their needs. If you don't, then I'd be interested to hear why. I don't believe any browser should treat GIFs and muted videos differently, and that was the crux of the GP's claim.

Animated GIFs are videos. They may not require a video tag, but they are videos by definition of using multi-frame images that change to simulate motion.

Great so the extension should disable gif animations as well, good point.

Its too much abused.

Just like gif was in 90s.

The client has two important values: attention/time and battery. Your preference screws both.

There's a couple of solutions to that (such as only looping once or for X seconds or not showing it).

Either way, you think too much from content creator PoV, IMO.

The web was made in such a way that clients are able to (massively) modify the content or the way it is shown. If you don't fancy that then you don't fancy one of the core foundations of the web. I use all kind of extensions to modify my web experience. If your PoV would become dominant, I simply would not use WWW anymore.

Default experience matters because most people don't use extensions, or not the same ones (power users do) so you get your way anyway. And I don't get my way on Firefox Mobile because they decided to axe a lot of extensions, and I don't get my way on work Citrix because admins decided which extensions are worthwhile (they block all video stuff, btw).

Not sure why you are downvoted. Animated gifs are huge in comparison.

One thing to note, however, is that it must be without sound. Auto playing sound of any sort is complete garbage.

> One thing to note, however, is that it must be without sound. Auto playing sound of any sort is complete garbage.

Agreed. I don't think I've ever felt the need to have autoplaying sound, and I struggle to think of any benefit from it.

I'm willing to keep my mind open, if anyone knows of a good website that effectively creates an experience using autoplay sound, please give me it.

All but demanding that the internet's users bend to the will of a single person's pet project is not likely to garner a positive response, if you must know.

> Not sure why you are downvoted.

Because auto-playing motion is something I should be able to disable. It distracts me and I don’t want it. Ever.

There's the option of simply not visiting the webpages that offend you.

I'm not going to change my writing / guide style just because some people outside of those gaming communities don't like the way they work. Its one thing if you were the target audience, its a totally different thing if you're just a meta-commentator talking about the internet in general.

Maybe that explains your results. Have a behaviour someone dislikes, they don't revisit, and thus don’t answer your survey question

I ask on the community forums or on the Discords. These websites have no direct feedback mechanism.

The feedback I get is like "That's a confusing paragraph", or "That's a bad strategy. You should be writing about X instead".

No one actually cares about the auto-playing videos, unless they're not working. (On page X on Safari, that video doesn't seem to be working was one complaint I got... and then I had to transcode my MP4 settings to get it working there).

You mean "yes and..." not no.

Your post has no content explaining why you wrote "No."

This is a bad habit that makes your sentiment confusing.

> I've made a few video game pages where auto-playing MP4s were essential at giving the right message

No. What you say is simply factually inaccurate. I've looked at the web page in your URL and it would be much better without distracting auto-playing video.

The video should play then the user wants it to play. Is that really so hard to understand?

I agree completely. When there's a looping video below the fold, I'd rather start it with a click, instead of having to watch it up to twice just to see the clip from beginning to end.

Then click the button to replay the clip from the beginning if that really is your problem.

But you won't. Because the clips are 5 to 20 seconds long. So its faster to just wait for the loop than even to move your hand to the mouse.

Seriously? It takes you 5 to 20 seconds to move your hand to the mouse?

I will seek when the option is presented. It’s either tiny or nonexistent though (e.g. for gifs, or if the author didn’t enable the video controls, which default to disabled in many browsers). I’m happiest when a video loads paused, and has a giant play button on it.

How are you scrolling? When I’m browsing and reading my hand lives on the mouse. On mobile it’s even easier to click to play. In either case, clicking on a video takes less than 1 second.

I do agree that extremely short loops can be a different story, but 20 seconds is by far over that time for me. 5 seconds is around the threshold.

I’m sure this preference varies by person.

> When I’m browsing and reading my hand lives on the mouse.

My hand lives either on the space bar, or the page-down button. Both of which are far more efficient at scrolling through pages of text.

> My hand lives either on the space bar, or the page-down button. Both of which are far more efficient at scrolling through pages of text.

Neither pgDown nor space bar scroll.

If the video is short, such as anything 20-seconds or shorter (even 5-second videos), the click is too much in my experience.

Perhaps its "meme culture" or Tik-Tock culture. But there's a style of super-short 5-second to 20-second video where looping makes far more sense than clicking.

--------

In either case, I've solicited feedback of this style in a variety of gaming forums from different communities. They mostly have had positive-experiences with tutorials / short videos written in this manner. Awesomenauts, Factorio, and Puyo Puyo. Three very different communities, three times they seemed to like the content and video/writing style of merged text + video.

Call it "Tumblr style", or "Tik-tok" style.

Did you solicit feedback on auto playing or videos in general? Your comment seems to say 2 while advocating for 1.

On your website your videos don't auto play for me on mobile, by the way, which I found convenient because it's tap on tap off. It's x-overflowing the videos though, which is inconvenient.

>Did you solicit feedback on auto playing or videos in general?

Of course they didn't. If they did, the site wouldn't work the way it works now.

It's just another example of "I know better than my users" attitude.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29348328

Funny, everyone likes the autoplaying GIFs in this other context, but they hate it here.

Everyone else here is wrong and you are right. The animated GIFs (as h.264 video or whatever) were the right play here.

Safari didn't block no-sound-track video for this reason. It's a good reason.

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