Google briefly starts rolling out Chrome update that blocked autoplay audio feature

Google has recently announced a whole lot of updates and features for its apps, services, and devices during the I/O 2018 annual developer conference. Now the tech giant has briefly begun rolling out the Chrome update that blocked the auto-playing audio. Google had blocked the update after a number of complaints from the web developers. The complaints were regarding the new code-breaking number of web apps and games.

The new updated feature was first introduced back in last month along with the Chrome 66. This was after Google acknowledged the complaints from various web-users related to the auto-play ads which were not only bothering a user but also use up the hardware resources along with consuming a huge amount of data. This ultimately hampers the workflow and also pushes more users to use ad-blocking software.

The main intent of the update was to abolish the auto-play ads; instead, somehow it ended up removing audio from the interactive web projects which rely on specific commands. This created issue for most of the web developers and users. This further resulted in the company receiving numerous complaints regarding the new feature.

However, the rollout is temporary and it will supposedly allow the developers some extra time to update their code. Google is planning to re-introduce the update in October along with Chrome 70 update. It is good that Google has taken up the responsibility to acknowledge the issue and agree to the fact that the new code did more harm than good. John Pallet, Chrome's project manager said that "in this case, we didn't do a good job of communicating the impact of the new autoplay policy to developers".

It will also be worth noting that the tech giant was unsuccessful in impressing the developers whose projects were affected by these changes. Benji Kay, who is one of such developer is also unhappy with the temporary change and said that "Simply delaying the enacting of this policy doesn't solve any of the major concerns".

He further implies that Google is enacting these changes with an eye on its bottom line. He also advises Google to not enable the policy by default, rather allows a user to activate it by going into Chrome's settings.