Chrome Tests Picture-in-Picture API To Show Floating Video Popups Outside the Browser (bleepingcomputer.com) 150
Browser makers are working on a new W3C API that will standardize Picture-in-Picture (PiP) mode and allow websites to show a floating video popup outside the browser window itself. From a report: In the past, picture-in-picture has only been supported inside a web page's canvas as a floating window that only appeared inside the current website, as the user scrolled up and down the page. Some platforms added support for a picture-in-picture mode, but those were OS-specific APIs that worked with all sorts of video apps, not just browsers. Now, the Web Platform Incubator Community Group (WICG) at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), has released details about a browser-specific API for standardizing picture-in-picture interactions that allow websites to open an external "floating video" popup outside the browser window itself. [...] Chrome and Safari have already shipped out the new Picture-in-Picture API.
Worst. Idea. Ever. (Score:5, Insightful)
You thought pop-over ads and auto-play videos were bad before?!?? Hopefully this can be disabled...
Re:Worst. Idea. Ever. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm with you on this:
You thought pop-over ads and auto-play videos were bad before?!?? Hopefully this can be disabled...
Do. Not. Want.
I can think of a few legitimate uses for this outside advertising, but I know that advertising will be the main use of this. This WOULD make me switch browsers. I would not use a browser that allows such an egregious violation of my desktop. Implement this and be boycotted.
Re:Worst. Idea. Ever. (Score:5, Insightful)
You forget, you are the product. Your opinion doesn't count.
Re: (Score:2)
This is the reality for web browsers. This is why I hated Chrome when it came out. Google made a closed source browser based on open components in Webkit/Gecko (it has since been opened under Chromium, but it didn't start that way).
We're pretty much in the same browser world that we are with most of our other "free" as in beer products.
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Lots of people use open source browsers, even Free Software browsers. They work quite well. So claiming it is "the reality for web browsers" is just a ridiculous statement.
If you're pathologically unable to use good software, own it, don't blame reality.
Re:Worst. Idea. Ever. (Score:4, Informative)
use firefox, there you are not the product ... they may still do not listen to you, but at least they are finally slowly disabling tracking
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And how does Mozilla get their money?
https://www.computerworld.com/... [computerworld.com]
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use firefox, there you are not the product ... they may still do not listen to you, but at least they are finally slowly disabling tracking
Very slowly. This tracking bug is still going after only 17 years, https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/s... [mozilla.org]
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notice that bug is a "tracking bug", not a but about tracking! :D
It is a meta-bug to follow all the favicons related bugs, so unless favicons disappear or all bugs are fixed, it will be open for a long time
But you can find other bugs related with tracking, most of then related with cookies and fingerprinting methods in the browsers that have several years...it is not easy to fix most of then as they may have valid usages
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You forget, you are the product. Your opinion doesn't count.
You forget, if your "product" leaves, then so to do the people who pay you.
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Clearly bullshit. Google started including an ad-blocker in Chrome ffs. They very obviously do care about your experience using the browser.
And with Chrome you are not the product. You can use it without any connection to Google. Their interest is in developing the web as a platform, because that's where they make their money.
As usual the reality of this feature is rather different to the default assumptions of most posters. It's basically like the F12 full screen key. If you want to have the video overlaid
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This comic [commitstrip.com] pretty much sums up what I think of Google's "adblocker". Or as I like to call it, "ad-sieve" because it only weeds out those ads that don't pay protection money to Google.
If I want to play a second video, I open a second browser window and play the video. Care to inform me what I'd want about this contraption?
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Google doesn't take money to pass ads through it's block. Show me some evidence if you have it.
The overlay feature is borrowed from mobile. When you are on one screen you might want the main browser to be full size, but also have the video playing overlaid in the corner. It's not something I would use, but it's something that people seem to like on phones. Some manufacturers even offer in the browser already, e.g. Samsung.
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The overlay feature is borrowed from mobile. When you are on one screen you might want the main browser to be full size, but also have the video playing overlaid in the corner. It's not something I would use, but it's something that people seem to like on phones.
I hate it on my phone. Glad I don't use Chrome on the desktop.
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Google gets to define what is an "acceptable" ad and what isn't. I don't doubt that they actually have an interest to weed out the most obnoxious ones simply to keep people from installing adblockers that shut out every ad, but since there are hardly any hard guidelines to follow, it basically comes down to "whatever Google deems bad".
And unless you can name a different motivator for a corporation than money, I'd like to hear it.
If it's for mobile, fine, implement it in the mobile browser. I can't argue whe
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Details of what counts as unacceptable here: https://www.betterads.org/stan... [betterads.org]
Google is a member of this group, but only one of many.
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Yes, I've read that. In the end what remains is that Google, and only Google, will get a say in what is going to be considered "permitted ads" in Chrome and what isn't. That requires trusting them. And so far I am sorry to say it but Google is not a company I would put my trust in. I prefer to trust an ad blocker that simply disables all ads, mostly because I know why Google created this ad filter in the first place.
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I doubt that, because if they just started blocking ads that compete with their own there would be legal consequences. The EU would be involved, applying some hefty fines.
But let's not speculate, let's just see what actually happens.
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Only if you allow yourself to be and slavishly accept whatever any browser maker throws at you. There are alternatives. There are always alternatives. Yes, that means you have to take care of it yourself instead of simply accepting what's thrown your way.
Freedom doesn't just mean you can do what you want. It means that you must, because if you let others decide what you want, you'll get what they want.
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No you're not. Everything is either webkit, chromium or gecko based today (or Titan for people who hate themselves). Firefox quantum is far from the performance beast we were told it was going to be. I'm on Vivaldi right now, but it follows the Chromium rendering engine (which itself was split from a hybrid webkit/gecko source years ago).
Pretty soon we'll be out of options. Remember when Firefox was the scaled down, super fast version of Mozilla? Today a web browser is a bloated heavy weight operating syste
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firefox quantum had one big component replaced with better, multi-thread code ... there are still many parts to be replaced. Some parts, chrome will always be faster, spawning 100 process to render 5 tabs may be more flexible in terms of performance... but at cost of ram! chrome eats my machine ram with few tabs, while firefox with hundred of tabs stays with about 4GB
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If only you actually used web browsers, you'd probably think of doing a web search to find out what the other options are.
If you did use a web browser, you wouldn't really even have to know how search works, you could just type a question into the part of the screen with a place to type stuff and then press Enter.
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This is why I never stopped using Firefox in the first place. Trust matters. Don't go from ownership to sharecropping just because a company made you the offer.
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This idea is shit and I hope it dies in a toilet.
Since Chrome is doing it, Chromefox will of course slavishly copy it. While Google will eventually realise that people need this like they need a hole in the head and back out the change, Mozilla will keep it in there.
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This idea is shit and I hope it dies in a toilet.
Since Chrome is doing it, Chromefox will of course slavishly copy it. While Google will eventually realise that people need this like they need a hole in the head and back out the change, Mozilla will keep it in there.
if that happens... then its opera only for me from that point on...
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if that happens... then its opera only for me from that point on...
As a browser, Opera's fine. But you know they were bought by a Chinese shell company, right? "Golden Brick Capital Private Equity Fund I L.P.".
Re:Worst. Idea. Ever. (Score:4, Interesting)
Exactly. Now all the sites that obnoxiously start playing videos when you load the pages (and nothing stops all of them) are going to pop open windows to do the same. Pop-up to the side, pop-up over top, pop-under...
And is there a limit to how many windows a site can open this way?
What could possibly go wrong?
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I can't wait for the malvertisers to use this functionality to make yet another generation of Trojans and scareware, fleece users, and entry points for intruders in company networks.
Can this piece of junk be tossed? We already had this garbage with pop-up ads, where one web page could bring up enough pop-ups that it would grind a box to a halt. Now, browser makers are bringing it back, but with video and sound capability?
Hopefully uBlock Origin and other ad blockers are updated to nip this garbage at the
Re:Worst. Idea. Ever. (Score:5, Insightful)
I came here to say this... Who is asking for these features?
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The same people who asked for autoplay and demanded browser makers implement it on by default (something, thankfully, they're finally backtracking on)?
I want my Flash video back. It was better. Easier to control. One plug-in per operating system rather than per-browser (if you're going "Huh?" look up how W3C implemented DRM in HTML5.) I was OK with Flash. I didn't like it, but only the W3C could make something worse than Flash.
Uh, Flash, Adobe reader, Java, etc. require different plugins for different browsers.
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"Many users want to continue consuming media while they interact with other content, sites, or applications on their device," Google software engineer François Beaufort explained this past January when he proposed the idea of a browser-specific API, different from the existing OS-level implementations. "The proposed Picture-in-Picture API allows websites to initiate and control this behavior," he says.
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Yeah I can see the use case. However, I can already pull the tab out into a new window if I want. Problem solved, without adding yet more stuff for advertisers to take advantage of.
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You mean, like, having a browser window with YouTube open on one screen while reading an article in another browser window on the second screen?
Care to inform me what the huge invention is about the planned change? Get to the part where it actually offers me any benefit.
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The advertisers, of course. They are, after all, the ones paying the bills.
Re: Worst. Idea. Ever. (Score:1)
It is indeed the worst idea ever, and will give crypto miners another way.
Re:Worst. Idea. Ever. (Score:5, Funny)
Oh this is just fucking awesome. I really can't think of any way for it to get better than this!! I thought having the video chase me down the page was the greatest thing since paper cuts and hang nails. But was so fucking WRONG!!!
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This will be used to make those "Your machine is infected" ads look even better for non-tech people to fall for. Anything browser related should be clearly in the browser!
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This will be used to make those "Your machine is infected" ads look even better for non-tech people to fall for. Anything browser related should be clearly in the browser!
I predict a significant rise in the number of Zombie machines owned by various botnets in the near future...
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Yes, the default setting should be for all the videos to float over the heads of the people who came up with this.
idiocracy predicted this again (Score:1)
Can this be disabled? (Score:3)
Stop with the Standards Bloat. (Score:1)
Stop with the Standards Bloat.
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No, I’d rather the feature die in a fire along with the people pushing it.
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Yeah, if you need some kind of special functionality that would be awful to include in a web browser, then you should have to write some fucking application software and run it in its own damn process.
This isn't something that "sites" have a legit reason to do. All the legit use cases are people at work doing jobs, who could just install a damn application, and if it includes a browser plugin, that's what plugin technology is for. People who gave up that technology deserve to live without it. They certainly
Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
No user has ever asked for this. Advertisers, yes, but actual users, no. This move should prove once and for all who Google exists for.
Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
Google’s customers are ad buyers. Now this decision makes much more sense, no?
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I would ask for this. They actually broke an extension that used to provide this. I had to install the Netflix app to put video in the corner when it was easier to just use the browser. That old extension let you put video always-on-top in its own window with no UI.
Of course, it should be fully opt-in without even so much as a request prompt being possible by the vendor, much the same way that casting from the browser works now.
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Window border, scroll bars, single tab wasting space, address bar row, bookmarks bar. Lots of wasted screen space. And then the video playing site would waste more space with its own UI. Plus, no always-on-top option.
Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
Window border, scroll bars, single tab wasting space, address bar row, bookmarks bar. Lots of wasted screen space. And then the video playing site would waste more space with its own UI. Plus, no always-on-top option.
All anyone can do is hope those advocating for a windowless context free area outside the browser window simply to avoid "wasting space" are either kidding or trolling.
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I had this with the ATI All-in-Wonder Pro back in the late 90's. Granted, it was cable TV and not streaming video. But I've been trying to get this feature back for the last 20 years. It's not like hovering the window or clicking it can't bring back some context or controls. But I only have room for one 4K monitor on this desk and it still feels cramped if I try to use a browser tab for video. I still hate using the Netflix app. I use video in the background as a way to not lose focus entirely while w
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So we should never advance technology until the 3rd world has caught up? That argument doesn't even make sense.
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We should advance, but the direction matters. Ask anyone living next to a cliff.
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You're wrong. People want to watch the current YouTube video while they find the next video to watch. This is the same functionality as PiP on tv's originally. Watch the very basic video, hear the audio, do something else.
The argument that no one wants it is bullshit. The argument should be put that in an app. If you want YouTube PiP get the app. Skip the web browser.
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And why would I want that video to play in a window I cannot control instead of another browser tab?
News sites terrible offenders (Score:5, Insightful)
Almost every news site now is already being offensive with their autoplay video that follows you and also jumps around on the page as you scroll down. And the video players don't all work the same -- some of them you click in the middle to pause, some you have to locate the pause button (wherever it may be), some of them can be closed entirely, others cannot. But universally I stop all of these videos. Neither the video nor the audio are wanted.
Putting these autoplay video sinto a popout window doesn't solve the problem, it only moves the problem into a popout window. W. T. F.
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Close page.
NEXT!
Fuck them. I'm not wasting my time making their site work. If it doesn't provide what I'm looking for or makes using it more painful than it has to be, close page and add the URL to the "-site:" string in the search.
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/. is one of few sites today that still plays nice without javascript.
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use umatrix ... you can enable the main site javascript (and so the site works) and disable the 10 other site javascript that will load all sort of shit!
Please Stop (Score:2)
Just stop, nobody wants this but those who live to make everyone else's life miserable.
Please just stop..
No.. NO,No,No (Score:1)
Seriously,,, this browser is getting un installed..like now
Stop Using Chrome (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Stop Using Chrome (Score:5, Insightful)
Chrome and Safari have already shipped out the new Picture-in-Picture API
...oh...
Most of it's open source (Score:2)
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Maybe you're right that you're one of the people responsible, but don't blame me.
I've been running open source browsers since the 90s. They work well. And did you know you can bypass many news paywalls by browsing with lynx? (Or just turning stylesheets off for that page)
There was a time when slashdot was only safe to browse in ASCII, even.
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I'm using it right now; it's my standard browser. I'm not really suffering.
At all.
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They removed the ability to save a file outside of the OS's download location.
No, they didn't.
I made heavy use of plugins which saved your downloads into folders based off the website you downloaded them from. Such a thing is completely impossible now.
No, it isn't.
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yes, you stop using firefox like 5 years ago, correct?
Which tab do I close to make it go away? (Score:5, Interesting)
No (Score:2)
Nooooooooooo.
Coming up next: (Score:1)
videos that bypass your volume controls and blast you with their ads!
What an abomination of an idea. (Score:2)
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Netflix, Youtube, Google Play, all allowing video separate from your browsing window with no space wasted on tabs. Back in the 90's, I accomplished this with an ATI All-in-wonder card and a coaxial cable tv connection. The TV app was an always-on-top window and could be set to have no borders and resized as small as you want.
A typical work scenario with Chrome PiP... (Score:2)
1. Lazy IT guy surfing the internet at desk
2. Boss walks up to desk; Lazy IT guy sees him approach in rear-view mirror taped to monitor
3. Lazy IT guy minimizes Chrome session.
4. Boss stares hard at un-minimized pr0n video auto-playing behind the now-minimized Chrome session.
5. Lazy IT guy does Walk of Shame with box out to parking lot...
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I hope you never stumble upon a page with information that pop-under's you a porn ad.
Horrifying (Score:3)
Adverts, yes. Bleah.
What about security implications? Perhaps the "video" simulates other applications, other windows?
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Agreed. Adverts are annoying, but the potential for spoofing other applications is far worse (even if initially difficult to exploit). 100% user-controlled may just about be acceptable - simply make it a property of any video control in the webpage, and it's instantly available on all websites without having to change a thing - but even then I wouldn't bet against it being exploited.
Spoof-N-Goof [Re:Horrifying] (Score:1)
The potential fail-level on both security and UI/UX is grand enough to put this in the top running for Worst Tech Idea of the Year.
I bet the PHB's patted themselves on the back as a way to "make our wonderful ads stand out from the crowd", and gave each other raises. Sick.
Forget it (Score:1)
I use a white list now for javascript. If they want to show obnoxious ads and their site doesn't work without it js, fuck them. Don't need it. Plenty of better things to do than watching lame videos and badly produced advertising.
Only If it's absolutely impossible to auto popup (Score:2)
Only If it's absolutely impossible to auto popup, I just maybe... possibly... nope. Still blocking it.
World Wide Web (Score:2)
Born 1991. Died 2018
RIP.
And if I make the browser window full screen? (Score:2)
And if I make the browser window full screen?
Does it pop up on the screen of the dip shit whose idea this was?
Because I could kind of get behind that...
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That's awesome! How can I help this get written into the standard where it belongs?
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And if I make the browser window full screen?
Three little words: Always on Top.
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And if I make the browser window full screen?
Three little words: Always on Top.
let me guess... its what she said yesterday? :-)
There is one positive angle (Score:3)
If you are browsing on a phone and lock your phone, the standard dictates a drone deliver a second phone to you with the video still playing where you left off.
Ok everyone, hang on a moment (Score:2)
First off, it's not enabled just yet. You have to jump through some hoops to enable it. [bleepingcomputer.com] You have to go through all this, at the moment:
In chrome://flags enable the following flags:
#enable-experimental-web-platform-features
#enable-surfaces-for-videos
#enable-picture-in-picture
Download and extract the extension zip file.
In chrome://extensions toggle Developer mode (upper-right corner) if it is not already on.
To load the extension, click Load Unpacked.
In
No window management (Score:2)
This is what the lack of decent window management on all the major platforms has led to. Both Windows, MacOS, and Linux have evolved their window management to the point where the only reasonable choice is to keep everything full screen.
Sure, you CAN have overlapping windows, but:
1) You'll have to fiddle endlessly with the mouse to get them arranged half-decently
2) New windows will appear in annoying places
3) As soon as you try to interact with a window, that window will pop in front of the actually useful
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I use Linux with Xfce and Compiz. It's not uncommon for me to open a terminal, set it to Always On Top and compare what I see there with what's on a web page. The browser has the focus, I can scroll up and down and even fill out a form, or make a comment, such as here, with the terminal still covering part of the browser. If you can't do that, there's somet
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I've been doing that since 1985 when the screen was just 512x342. Now my usual screen is 1920x1200, with a web browser taking up about 60% of that area. You just have to learn a few habits, mostly strategic management of edges and corners, hiding apps you aren't using, and often the Dock's "bring all windows of one application to the front" behavior helps too.
Actually, the thing that helps that most is apps that remember where you last put windows and which things you last had open. Web browsers rememberin
Test of W3C (Score:4, Interesting)
To be fair "This specification was published by the Web Platform Incubator Community Group. It is not a W3C Standard nor is it on the W3C Standards Track."
If this ever changes and W3C is willing to pursuit such a blatantly anti-user misfeatures the organization will have lost all remaining respect and legitimacy with me for what little that's worth.
Browser initiated or website initiated? (Score:2)
"The proposed Picture-in-Picture API allows websites to initiate and control this behavior," he says.
According to the new API, websites will be able to control when to open or close the PiP popup, set the popup size, overlay custom controls, restrict certain
interactions inside the popup, and gather statistics on when users open or leave PiP and how they used it.
Then it says:
Most importantly, during Bleeping Computer's experiments, we've noticed the PiP extension would float almost al
Bad web sites ... (Score:2)
The stated reason for this proposal is:
[blockquote]"Many users want to continue consuming media while they interact with other content, sites, or applications on their device"[/blockquote]
How about, instead web designers design their sites to work well with windows open side by side?!
I'm talking about you, Google! And especially about Youtube after the redesign. There is a reason why I still use the "classic mode" on Youtube.
Here's one use (Score:1)
rarely used it (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
Seems like a <blink>GREAT</blink> idea!