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Did you update Google Chrome recently? You may have a problem
It’s safe to say that Google’s Chrome browser is undisputedly the champion of web browsers. The browser’s global market share just keeps on growing and it’s not even close.
Currently, it has steadily increased its market share to over 57 percent of the market, beating Safari, Firefox, Microsoft’s Edge and Internet Explorer, and Opera by a wide margin.
Chrome fans like it because of its speed, multi-platform integration, user-friendliness, third-party extensions, incognito mode and its clean and simplified design. It also has ample privacy and security tools you can employ to protect yourself while browsing the web.
Despite its massive popularity, Google is not sitting pretty on its throne. The company is constantly working on new updates and features that keep the Chrome experience fresh and relevant.
Take the latest major update, for example. It has a new welcome feature that is meant to help alleviate one of the most annoying things on the internet – autoplay videos.
However, not everyone is happy with the changes. Worse yet, that feature is actually breaking the web for some people.
What’s wrong with the last major Chrome update?
A major Google Chrome update (Chrome 66) rolled out recently and one of its major improvements is its ability to prevent videos from playing automatically with sound.
This is a great new feature for people who would prefer not to have unexpected media and sound playback while browsing the web.
With the Chrome 66 update, autoplay will only be allowed if the media has no sound, when you click or tap on the content on the website, or if you have shown interest in the content in the past.
“This will reduce unexpected video playbacks with sound when first opening a [webpage],” stated Google in its official blog post covering the update.
While this is certainly a welcome feature for many people, it is causing a problem for some.
The latest update is reportedly breaking the sound of HTML5-based games, apps and multimedia content in websites.
This quirk has led to numerous complaints from web developers and producers of interactive content, as well as Google Chrome users who regularly consume such multimedia content.
Google is rolling the feature back
In response, Google is now temporarily removing the auto-play blocking feature to give developers who use the Web Audio API enough time to update their code.
Note: The Web Audio API is what HTML-based content such as games, audio apps, video apps, etc. use for handling their audio.
To be compatible with the autoplay changes, content developers will have to add a few lines to their code to re-enable the auto-muted audio when a user visits a webpage.
Developers will have to act fast, though. Google is planning on re-enabling the autoplay blocking feature when Chrome version 70 is released in October.
Unfortunately, this can be bad news for developers who no longer have access to the code of older content and legacy games. This means these types of content may remain broken forever (in Google Chrome, at least.)
How to update Chrome:
Google Chrome can be set to automatically update with new versions that include the most recent security patches.
If you’re using a computer: Just close and reopen your Chrome browser. Or, Click the Chrome menu that looks like three horizontal lines on the far upper-right hand corner of the screen >> Update Google Chrome >> Relaunch.
If you don’t see Update Google Chrome, don’t worry. That means you have the most updated version.
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Tags: Google, Google Chrome, market share, security, web browsers
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