The core reason why browsers restrict the automatic playback of HTML5 videos is to improve the user experience and prevent unauthorized sound playback and resource consumption. The main strategies include: 1. When there is no user interaction, audio automatic playback is prohibited by default; 2. Allow mute automatic playback; 3. Audio videos must be played after the user clicks. The methods to achieve compatibility include: setting muted properties, mute first and then play in JS, and waiting for user interaction before playing. Browsers such as Chrome and Safari perform slightly differently on this strategy, but the overall trend is consistent. Developers can optimize the experience by first mute playback and provide an unmute button, monitoring user clicks, and handling playback exceptions. These restrictions are particularly stricter on mobile, with the goal of avoiding the confusion caused by unexpected traffic consumption and multiple videos playing simultaneously.

The browsers are increasingly restricting the automatic playback of HTML5 videos, mainly because it is to improve user experience and reduce interference. Simply put, the mainstream approach now is: without user interaction, the video cannot automatically play sound by default . This is basically consistent in mainstream browsers such as Chrome, Safari, and Firefox.

Core changes in the autoplay policy

In the past, web pages could have videos automatically played at will, regardless of whether there is a sound or not. No more now. The main changes are concentrated in two aspects:

• Mute automatic playback is allowed, audio cannot
• Only after users actively interact with each other can they play videos with sound

The specific implementations of different browsers vary slightly. For example, Safari is more stringent, while Chrome provides some APIs to control the behavior of policies.

For example: If you call video.play() when a web page is loading, but the video is not muted, most browsers will block this behavior and throw an error.

How to achieve automatic playback that is compatible with the new policy?

Want your HTML5 videos to play smoothly in a modern browser? The key is: either mute it or wait for the user to click on the page before playing .

Here are a few common practices:

• ? Set muted attribute: <video muted autoplay></video> can usually play normally
• ? Set .muted = true in JS and then call .play()
• ? After the user clicks the button, plays a video with sound
• ? Try playing non-silent videos directly (especially automatic playback)

Some websites make the playback silently first and then display a "Unmute" button, which not only meets policy requirements but also retains the user experience.

Why are browsers so restricted?

In fact, this is not a browser "intentionally causing trouble", but to prevent the following situations:

• A sudden sound appeared on the page, scaring the user
• Mobile traffic is secretly consumed
• Multiple tabs play at the same time, causing confusion

Especially on mobile devices, almost no automatic playback of any sound video is allowed. This is also why many video websites will give priority to displaying preview images on mobile devices and will only start playing when users click.

Tips in actual development

If you want to play videos when the page loads and want to keep sound as much as possible, consider the following tips:

• Play in mute mode first, then provide the "Unmute" button
• Listen to the user's first click event and trigger playback
• Use videoElement.muted and videoElement.volume to control the volume
• Check whether the browser supports automatic playback (can be judged by .play() return value of Promise)

If you encounter a failure in automatic playback, you can catch the exception through .catch() and then prompt the user to click on the screen to continue playing.

Basically that's it. Although the automatic playback policy of HTML5 videos is a bit annoying, it is not complicated to handle as long as you understand the logic behind it.

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