Dealing with Auto Play on modern browsers :^(

[Melooon]

Most modern browsers continue their war on auto-play music and I personally feel like its killing my site and a lot of the joy I get out of site crafting. Firefox doesn't even have audio for my site at all anymore and I can't get it to work 

Perhaps we need to start a wiki tutorial explaining how to enable auto-play on different browsers to novice web explorers (would someone like to do this??) and maybe it's time to collect tips and tricks for getting auto-play to work on sites as easily as possible!

Does anyone have any tips? (I do but I'll add them later!)

[starbreaker]

Brace for ideology!

I personally think that, regardless of a website operator's wishes, a website should not be permitted to automatically play music or video in my browser on my computer. I believe that the browser as "user agent" should serve me alone. Likewise, my computer should serve me alone, and not its manufacturer or other parties.

For this reason, I keep autoplay disabled. I also use adblocking plugins (and block ad servers at the DNS level).

Likewise, I might want my own website to play the opening riff to "Operation Mindcrime" by Queensryche when people open pages on my site, but visitors might not be metal fans or might not want music they didn't choose playing on their computers. My right to express myself ends where their right to control their own computers begins.

To answer your question: Mozilla does provide instructions for enabling autoplay in Firefox. This can be done for all sites, or for selected sites. It is, however, something browser users must choose to do themselves.

[Melooon]

a website should not be permitted to automatically play music or video in my browser on my computer

In my case the browser is a canvas for an artwork; so the disabled autoplay is like putting a filter in front of a canvas that removes the colour. The image is still there, but the artwork is butchered.

It's quite existential for me because if the browser cannot be a canvas for the work I'm making (and audio has always been the most powerful aspect of my work), then it's my time to bow out of the web as an art medium; so Im looking for alternatives!

[wygolvillage]

I don't hate autoplay and I do think that autoplay shouldn't be forced to be disabled. I also acknowledge autoplaying audio can be quite harmful. However as long as there's a way to turn it back on and allow it on certain sites I'm usually not too bothered (for example I allow autoplay by default on neocities websites). It's a hard line to toe.

For example I played through an entire atmospheric browser game before I knew how to allow autoplaying audio and not having the music took away from the experience somewhat... I did replay it with audio later and it felt a lot more complete/whole. But having the audio missing and no obvious messages about there being disabled audio or "click to allow autoplay on this site" made it so I didn't even realize the audio was supposed to be there, simply because of my browser.

I suspect this will be a divisive subject for a lot of people and I think if browsers had an "ask first, then allow autoplay on this site during this session if user selected "yes"" type of setting it would solve a lot of issues

[j]

if the browser cannot be a canvas for the work I'm making (and audio has always been the most powerful aspect of my work), then it's my time to bow out of the web as an art medium; so Im looking for alternatives!

mozart, one of the most influential classical musicians of all time, became deaf at age 35. he proceeded to cut the legs off of his piano so he could still feel its vibrations. your art can still be appreciated even if it's not in its entirety; deaf folks can still visit your website and enjoy its design!

still, i can understand your frustration. i think what you're describing is the equivalent of me closing my eyes when standing in front of a painting, or putting my fingers in my ears at a concert. you can't make folks register what you've made, but you can prioritize the feedback you get from folks that comment!

[DiffydaDude]

In my case the browser is a canvas for an artwork; so the disabled autoplay is like putting a filter in front of a canvas that removes the colour. The image is still there, but the artwork is butchered.

It's quite existential for me because if the browser cannot be a canvas for the work I'm making (and audio has always been the most powerful aspect of my work), then it's my time to bow out of the web as an art medium; so Im looking for alternatives!

i dont think you should leave just because you cant play music lol, have you tried looking through the about:config? theres a bunch of settings for allowing autoplay!
so like, dont leave yet!
maybe change this variable "media.autoplay.block-webaudio" to false

[Melooon]

i dont think you should leave just because you cant play music lol

Its ok, I had some dinner and Im feeling less dramatic now But I am still very bothered by this; I did come up with an idea though!

Autoplay preferences can be bypassed whenever you have an interaction like a click. Pixel Sea uses this and has a system where it checks each interaction to see if the music is playing, if its not, it starts playing music any time you interact. It's a very reliable system and even works on phones. So I just need to find a way to port it over to my main site, AND I have an idea!

A bug! I could make a bug that sits on every page and checks to see if music is playing; if there is music it'll fall asleep, but if no music is playing it runs all over the place until you click it to start the music Oh yes this will annoy so many people

[DiffydaDude]

Its ok, I had some dinner and Im feeling less dramatic now But I am still very bothered by this; I did come up with an idea though!

Autoplay preferences can be bypassed whenever you have an interaction like a click. Pixel Sea uses this and has a system where it checks each interaction to see if the music is playing, if its not, it starts playing music any time you interact. It's a very reliable system and even works on phones. So I just need to find a way to port it over to my main site, AND I have an idea!

A bug! I could make a bug that sits on every page and checks to see if music is playing; if there is music it'll fall asleep, but if no music is playing it runs all over the place until you click it to start the music Oh yes this will annoy so many people

Btw i still get the music, maybe because my version of firefox isnt the latest

[starbreaker]

mozart, one of the most influential classical musicians of all time, became deaf at age 35.

Were you thinking of Ludwig van Beethoven?

[j]

Were you thinking of Ludwig van Beethoven?

maybe i did, oops! thanks for that :)

[DiffydaDude]

Hey dudes, Melooon said that this wasnt a thing about browsers phasing out autoplay, its actually a bug that occurs on M1 Macs (NS_ERROR_DOM_MEDIA_MEDIASINK_ERR) <- this is the error message

[Melooon]

this wasnt a thing about browsers phasing out autoplay,

Well the thing is that if they cared about autoplay, they would have fixed it (It seems like its been a frequent issue for a few years); but I don't think they do, so who's gonna fix it? So it is about them phasing it out, but its phasing out by neglect which is the worst kind!

[PurpleHello98]

The only good solution I can come up with (and the one I've opted to use for my own site) is to have a message on my landing page asking anyone who stops by to turn. their auto-play on. Thankfully, auto-play isn't integral to my site, but I still think it's a part to get the full experience.