People at Google have recently started to look into the flash video auto-play function that allows background content to play without any warning.
Chromium engineers have been working on an update that will allow Google Chrome users to disable unwanted flash content. The features are currently being tested out by Google’s software developers.
Are you familiar with the messy situation of opening dozens of tabs and then spend way too much time on finding the one that is playing unwanted sounds? Google promises that flash videos will now play only when tabs are in the foreground. No more wasting time in looking for that one loud tab that is making noises in the background. All other page resources will load in the background, it’s just that auto-play videos won’t start until users access the tab on which the content is embedded.
Google Chrome and a couple of other browsers already implemented a feature that can display a sound icon on the tabs with active flash content, meant to help users find the source of the sound almost immediately. However, there are cases where auto-play videos are muted and waste a lot of CPU resources as they are playing in the background without the permission or awareness of Internet users.
The new feature not only will help preventing this from happening, but also save a lot of resources, since only the tabs that are in the foreground will make use of CPU resources.
A recent scandal that took advantage of the auto-play feature of flash video content was the unsettling execution of reporter Alison Parker and her co-worker Adam Ward, who were shot dead in cold blood live on YouTube. A recording of the horrifying incident was posted on other social media sites on Wednesday morning this week, but the short clip was taken down immediately by site moderators. YouTube apologized for the incident, but for many users it was too late.
Photo credits: Pixabay
