Google Chrome plans to combat auto-play videos

If there is one thing a lot of us don't take too kindly to on the internet, it is auto-play videos on sites in the background. Google already made finding which tab is playing audio a little easier last year with a new speaker icon displayed on tabs with audio, but now Google wants to stop background tabs from playing videos entirely.

In a post from Chrome engineer, François Beaufort, upcoming plans to stop auto-playing videos were revealed. In a future update, Chrome will start blocking auto-play videos from playing as long as they are in the background tab. The videos will still be loading in the background and when you click on to that tab, the videos will eventually play.

This will help prevent any annoying background audio that you weren't expecting. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like Chrome is going to ask for user permission before allowing a video to play but this new method will be a bit less intrusive for many users.

There isn't much word on how this will work with things like YouTube or Twitch. Under this new system, it sounds like if you've set up a YouTube playlist for music listening or maybe for podcasts, you will need to click back on to the relevant tab every time you want the next video to play, so the feature does have some drawbacks.

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KitGuru Says: There are some sites out there that will automatically play a video advert after being in the background for a certain amount of time so this will help with that, though those may be less useful for those who like to listen to videos playing in the background while they do something else. 

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