Rita El Khoury / Android Authority
The one factor I don’t like greater than corporations messing with a product that works is them messing with it so as to add a perform nobody requested for. And the one factor I dislike greater than that’s when the change is thrown in my face, with no choose out and no setting to disable it. And the one factor I hate greater than each of those is YouTube’s new screensaver on TVs.
For the previous few weeks, YouTube on my Android TV field and my Chromecast with Google TV has been overtaking the TV’s screensaver perform. 5 minutes of inactivity with the YouTube app open and increase! Feast your eyes on a brand new random video thumbnail screensaver! Say I’ve paused my video to seek for one thing on my telephone or seize a drink or no matter, I come again and discover a random thumbnail on my TV.
Do you want YouTube’s new screensavers in your TV?
34 votes
At first, I assumed I used to be doing one thing mistaken. I’m used to the Chromecast screensaver kicking in, however after a lot later than 5 minutes. So I went trying in YouTube’s settings for an choice to disable these screensavers and effectively, nope, there’s no toggle for that. I appeared in my Android TV‘s settings, however the shortest timeout is 5 minutes, which is similar as that foolish automated YouTube screensaver, so it retains overtaking the Chromecast one.
Somebody at YouTube determined that invading my lounge with random movies is a good suggestion, and so they may’ve gotten a promotion out of it.
The opposite concern is that these screensaver movies are usually not one thing I’ve ever watched or added to any playlist. I by no means requested for them. They’re random nature and hearth movies that YouTube has picked. The one saving grace is that the video doesn’t autoplay; it’s only a thumbnail. Urgent again on my distant takes me to my authentic paused video.
But when I dare press the up button by mistake, which is one thing I’m used to doing in an effort to resume playback of normal YouTube movies, then that foolish screensaver begins enjoying as a substitute of my paused video. And now, I’ve to exit it to return. There aren’t sufficient cuss phrases to clarify how infuriating that is. Much more so when these screensavers find yourself in my YouTube watch historical past!
And did I point out that I’m a YouTube Premium subscriber? Oh, as a result of I’m. I pay for YouTube to assist creators and for the privilege of skipping adverts, video previews, and random crap. Not this random crap, although. This explicit taste of random crap is outwardly un-skippable.
So let me summarize this for everybody:
- YouTube’s new screensaver cannot be disabled.
- It doesn’t discriminate between Premium and free customers. Everybody will get to take pleasure in this excellent tech development.
- It overtakes Chromecast’s default screensaver.
- It will get triggered on the lowest five-minute timeout, so that you higher rush to the lavatory and are available again! And no, you may’t change its timeout.
- It reveals random thumbnails of movies you don’t have any management over on the largest display screen in your house. Oh, how I yearn for the day when somebody figures out a method to slip in adverts or raunchy movies in there!
- If you happen to press the mistaken button (a button your muscle reminiscence is likely to be used to urgent to renew common movies), it begins enjoying the darned screensaver video as a substitute.
- And it reveals up in your watch historical past.
Excellent. 15/10. Would promote the product supervisor who launched this.