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Comment by massysett | Hacker News Reader

This behavior is so bad that I have changed my browsing behavior. I visit only selected, trusted news sites, as "free" sites are horrible offenders here. Google is much less useful while on desktops as it is likely to return obnoxious websites.

So far I have not had a bad autoplay problem on iOS. However a growing problem is obnoxious pop up ads that are difficult to escape.

Overall more of my Internet usage is shifting to apps because the Web is just too annoying. Years ago the Web was like a friendly, boisterous marketplace in a safe town. Now it's like the street in "Casablanca" where I must constantly guard against someone picking my pocket. It's not worth using except for a few sites I trust.

Google in particular had better watch out. With Web hostility their search is not as useful. One reaction of theirs has been to pack more information directly into their search result.

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You're implying that the web has gotten worse, but in my experience it used to be much worse. Just the memory of the sea of pop-ups that you had to fight when browsing the web makes my stomach turn.

However, there seem to be a recent trend in auto-platyng video, in fact this is not only happening on the web but on apps too like Facebook and Twitter.

Facebook and Twitter seem to be going for the auto repeat play on videos too, so unless you physically stop them, they just keep playing over and over again. Annoying if you have turned away to do something else or have scrolled down the page a bit more - you have to go back up and find the offending video again to stop it. (NB: I normally play videos with speeches or music clips, so I don't need to SEE the video, but just listen to the audio.)

At least FB and Twitter give you an option to turn it off. (PLEASE KEEP THAT OPTION FB.)

> One reaction of theirs has been to pack more information directly into their search result.

Really good point -- I have noticed that a lot recently. It's expanded beyond the right side bar, which was already pretty useful (if only a Wikipedia summary). Many times I get what I was looking for by simply searching Google, rather than taking the additional step of clicking into one of the results. This is good for me but bad for someone, I'm sure.

Wait. Are you saying that a sandboxed web site is less safe than an app with (usually) full access to your contacts, identity, messages, location and photos?

You can also change your browser, or with some browsers, a setting option.

There is a disable autoplay in Firefox as a hidden pref. Enabling it break YouTube (offender number 1) and Vimeo.

Vimeo's take is that it is a bug in the browser hence it should be fixed. But then Vimeo are the same that told use to use Safari on Linux because Firefox "didn't support HTML5" (it did, just not encumbered H264 codec, but when you are lying, do the extra mile).

It works perfectly fine in Opera, in case anyone wants to use a browser with that option that's also not broken.

Whenever i interact with Vimeo i find it coming across as "hipster Youtube" if that makes any sense. Even when used for tech demo videos, everything from the lighting to the presenters scream "we are artists, not techies".

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