Browser Autoplay Policies
Why web browsers are restricting autoplay
Chrome and Safari are restricting their autoplay capabilities as a result of the continuous misuse of autoplay which causes bad user experiences. These changes are intended to give greater control of playback to users and to benefit publishers with legitimate use cases.
Currently, VIXY supports two types of autoplay:
- Unmuted Autoplay: autoplay with audio enabled.
- Muted Autoplay: autoplay with audio disabled.
The first type is considered abruptive, while the second type is more user-friendly. Some browsers that normally disallow unmuted autoplay allow it when the viewer explicitly indicates so.
Browser support for Autoplaying videos
Operating System |
Browser | Type | Allowed? |
iOS | Safari 11 | Unmuted Autoplay | No |
Muted Autoplay | Yes | ||
Android | Chrome | Unmuted Autoplay |
No |
Muted Autoplay |
Yes | ||
MacOS | Safari 10 |
Unmuted Autoplay |
Yes |
Muted Autoplay |
Yes | ||
Safari 11 |
Unmuted Autoplay |
No | |
Muted Autoplay |
Yes | ||
Windows, MacOS | Chrome 64 | Unmuted Autoplay | No |
Muted | Yes | ||
|
An HTML5 video player can't circumvent these technical limitations, this also applies to the VIXY video player. VIXY offers additional player settings (also available via the API) which enable you to switch between muted and unmuted autoplay where this is allowed.
Default player behaviour
By default, the VIXY player will still autoplay but muted. You can overwrite this behaviour with additional player settings to stop autoplay in unsupported browsers.
How to stop autoplay on browsers where unmuted autoplay is restricted
1. Go to the Player Studio in the top navigation bar -> Open a video player
KEY: autoPlayFallbackToMute
VALUE: false
For more information on browser autoplay restrictions:
iOS Autoplay policies
https://webkit.org/blog/7734/auto-play-policy-changes-for-macos/
https://webkit.org/blog/6784/new-video-policies-for-ios/
Chrome autoplay policies:
https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2017/09/autoplay-policy-changes