Gregory's ServerIn UI circles you sometimes see a (usually derogatory) label of "hover tunnel" given to a UI widget, like a clickless contextual menu, which requires you hover over an element then continue to hover over specific elements in order to keep the widget active. I would like to propose the term "Reverse Hover Tunnel" for the current YouTube front page, where you must move the mouse in strict and meticulous paths to avoid it beginning to autoplay random crap, possibly forever showing it as 10% watched
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 @mcc I only recently discovered that there's an option tucked away to turn that off. I expect they'll remove that before long though. Seems like that's the progression. Hide an option deep in settings, then use "nobody turns it off anyway" as a justification for removing it.   @mcc I have done this forever now where I position my mouse in a spot where I can scroll as long as possible without triggering the autoplay. It is so frustrating to have videos just start that I haven’t told YouTube that I am thalli want to watch it.   @mcc I constantly do this on so many video websites these days. Even ones where I've been able to disable the auto-play because I just assume a hostile environment. :sigh: I run it along the outside edges of the main area ... More to eliminate the accidental track pad tap when I stop or start scrolling, but the autoplay is annoying too. I don't mind it on wifi, but I don't want it when using mobile data   @mcc This is the most painfully true UI commentary I've ever seen, I do this all the time. @mcc I think you can shut it off. YouTube / Profile / Settings / Playback and Performance. In the Browsing category, there's an option for Video Previews. You can toggle it off. No joke - that toggle has never worked for me except when I was about to write a snarky post about it. Hopefully, it works for everyone else. @vegetarianzombie @mcc it works for me, but there was a period of about 2 months where it would re-enable itself every week or so. I wouldn't go so far as to say it was intentional, but it definitely felt like a low priority bug (as opposed to if it kept DISabling itself) @christmastree @mcc Yeah, I have no faith it's a workable solution. For some reason, Google values the act of torturing their end users. :)  @mcc I imagined the tune of the popcorn song traversing the safe path  @mcc@mastodon.social  @mcc "And as they passed the last of the treasonists, Dante and Virgil reached last part of the ninth circle of hell... those who committed the sin of autoplaying video." @mcc I feel so seen 😭 And it's a feedback loop! Mess up and hover over some clickbait, get recommended more of that next time.  @mcc UGH. I do this every day to avoid the fluttering crap. It’s intrusive and rude of a user interface to animate while you’re trying to do something else. All app UIs should have an animation-off setting, because it’s an accessibility issue as well as a strong human preference (both for and against motion). I also want to turn off the https://Mastodon.social scroll-activated moving images.  @mcc I really don't understand the point of this feature at all, because realistically, you're going to click on the video to see the description or comments section anyways, so it's kind of a useless feature IMO. You have to go into your YouTube account settings > Playback and performance, and turn off the "Video previews" option to disable the autoplaying video previews. There isn't a way to disable it while logged out, but I assume a third-party browser extension out there can do that.  @mcc on Android, ReVanced manager works really well to knock shit like that off, not that it helps on a PC   @mcc @jplebreton I'm pretty sure that's not it actually; I also had autoplay off, for the same reasons, but have had the hover minefield issue for...I don't know time anymore. I'm pretty sure it's been months? And it hadn't occurred to me that there was an option to switch it off. unless by autoplay you don't mean "pick a video at random from all of Youtube to play after the video you watched" and instead mean "allow video to start without an initial click." I do have the latter turned on @ChateauErin @mcc @jplebreton Just spotted this in settings under "Playback and performance." I appreciate that reading this conversation led to me to finding and turning that mess off @Cheeseness @ChateauErin @mcc ah, that does seem like the ticket! thanks for digging, hopefully this helps others. @jplebreton @mcc That should disable that "feature" :)  And no matter how many times I turn this off in settings, it mysteriously turns it self back on every few months. Dark patterns indeed. @mcc You can disable that, and should disable that because even partially watched videos count towards your algorithm, one of many systems they've put in place to try to get people back into their right-wing radicalization pipeline. @mcc that is funny and yes, seeing incomplete random videos in your watch history must be super snoring. This hover autoplay feature Is available on Chromium based browsers so not an issue for me as I use Safari. @mcc Autoplay is awful and also that looks like a new legal eagle video so I know what I'm about to watch 🎉 @mcc @hanhaiwen i have this wonderful hack: youtube does not give you any suggestions when you deny them permission to analyze your watch history. in fact they deactivate everything besides your subscripted channels and search. it is wonderful! it is exactly what I ever wanted!i finally beat the algorithm.  @mcc With a graphics tablet* you can just magically teleport the cursor to wherever you want it, skip right past the boss battle to the win screen ^_^ (* pen tablet, Wacom, etc. dangit, why did they have to start calling oversized smaphos tablets? *shakes fist*) |
This is a joke but I actually did catch myself doing this, carefully pixel-positioning the mouse cursor while I scrolled