There’s some serious conflicts of interest because Google owns YouTube and needs to use their browser and video platform market share to benefit their profits. Videos can load while muted without user interaction. Recent chrome releases only prevent audio from playing if you don’t interact with the page. Users couldn’t prevent websites from playing videos on page load anymore. However, Google removed the flag without explanations. Google Chrome had a “ auto-play policy” flag, when enabled, prevented websites from playing videos and audio. This includes playing video or audio content when the page loads. However, Google has been inconsistent with their approach to users’ privacy and their ability to prevent websites from doing things that users dislike.

We can see this trend with many recent browsers, which come with inbuilt ad and tracker blocking features. And companies are noticing their importance. Browsers are at the forefront of a lot of attacks.

From malicious websites to annoying ads and trackers. Browsers not only have to parse the code with but they also have to prevent websites from ruining users’ experience.

Websites are increasingly becoming complex in attempts to engage more users.

Google chrome autoplay video plugin