Google Chrome will no longer autoplay videos

Major changes are coming to Google Chrome in the next few months. Google Chrome will gain abilities to minimize the impact of annoying auto play videos. Starting in January next year, the browser will no longer auto play videos.

The exceptions are if they"re muted and don"t have sound or you"ve shown interest in watching them. The feature will roll out to users with Chrome 64. Chrome 63 does come with its own muting feature too. It is available from October onwards. It gives the user the ability to mute an entire website.

You might wonder what Google Chrome considers as "showing interest in auto playing videos?". When it comes to mobile, it will auto play files only on websites that are present on the home screen of your device. On the desktop version, it will play videos from websites that you usually play media from.

Google says the feature will "unify desktop and mobile web behaviour". Furthermore, they say that the changes "will give users greater control over media playing in their browser. It will also make it easier for publishers to implement auto play where it benefits the user." According to a post on the Chromium Blog, this will “allow auto play to occur when users want media to play, and respect users" wishes when they don"t”.

This is great news for anyone using the internet. We have all come across sites where media starts blaring, regardless of whether you wanted it to or not.

Blocking auto playing videos has more benefits than just the user experience. It can also help improve the battery life of mobile devices and cut down on data usage, especially for those on limited internet packages. Another nice side effect could be content creators working harder to make videos that you actually want to watch.