Last Updated on 08/07/2019 by TDH Publishing (A)
Google could soon add a button to its Chrome toolbar that would make it easy to play or pause a video or a song, that too from any tab. A recent report from Chrome’s Canary suggested a new feature called Global Media Controls, which was also seen by ZDNet, Techdows, and others.
Once this feature is enabled, it would be visible next to the URL (besides the bookmark star) if you are playing a video in any tab. When clicked, a larger control pops up that lets users play, pause, or skip forward/backward without actually going to the video itself.
The feature could also be handy for stopping any annoying autoplay videos or controlling YouTube videos if you switch to another tab. This change would also be welcomed, considering Google has recently removed the ability to mute tabs just by clicking on the speaker icon next to the URL since one can also permanently shut a playing video by right-clicking on that tab. Global Media Controls are more versatile, though particularly for rapid YouTube watchers, and one would not even need to chase down any offending auto-play tabs.
After playing with the feature, many users reported their complaints that though the feature could control both audios and videos, but not on all sites. In addition to this, many users also found the new feature to be too buggy and crashing constantly.
However, it is still in the testing phase, and it is known that if the giant tech decides to bake out the feature on its browser, it would definitely work seamlessly. Users who wish to give this feature a try can download the Canary browser, and then enable the flag chrome://flags/#global-media-controls. I hope the developers treat this buggy feature faster and provide users with this update real soon.