[HN Gopher] Watt The Fox?
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       Watt The Fox?
        
       Author : h43z
       Score  : 37 points
       Date   : 2025-02-15 21:32 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (h.43z.one)
 (TXT) w3m dump (h.43z.one)
        
       | martin_a wrote:
       | Should I be able to actually hear something?
       | 
       | Firefox 134.0.1 on MacOS here, I don't hear anything.
        
         | TrianguloY wrote:
         | Firefox on Android. I do hear a small white noise!
        
       | mike_d wrote:
       | The websites opening an audio context without using it to play
       | anything are probably doing bot detection.
       | 
       | Different browser engines and operating systems implement audio
       | processing differently, so if you play a completely inaudible
       | sound and then record it back (from the API not the microphone)
       | you end up with a signature.
       | 
       | You can use that signature to see if the browser is lying about
       | its user agent, running in headless mode, or all sort of other
       | interesting edge cases that are not a real user buying widgets.
       | 
       | https://github.com/fingerprintjs/fingerprintjs/blob/3201a7d6...
        
       | pianom4n wrote:
       | Wow, this white noise has been driving me crazy for a long time
       | but I could never track it down.
       | 
       | The tab doesn't show the "playing" icon, and muting the tab
       | doesn't stop the noise.
       | 
       | Even using the Windows volume mixer to mute Firefox doesn't stop
       | the noise.
       | 
       | Edit: The addon is actually pretty bad for a desktop user since
       | the white noise starting/stopping constantly is far more
       | annoying.
        
       | cosmotic wrote:
       | If the output idles, digital SPDIF signals lose sync. Re-syncing
       | once playback starts is not instant, and you lose the first
       | second of audio or so. I wrote a program that kept open an output
       | withought dumping any data to the line, just to prevent the
       | output from idling.
       | 
       | Doesnt make much sense in the context of a laptop though, so
       | energy savings make sense there.
        
       | padenot wrote:
       | This is planned, and important, and we'll fix it hopefully soon,
       | it's long overdue. I'm sorry this hasn't happened yet, it's
       | always a game of priorities that can never satisfy everybody on
       | time. It however ranks fairly high on my personal list.
       | 
       | As one could imagine it's a bit (read: a lot) more complicated
       | than just pausing the AudioContext after some time of silence,
       | but we'll get it fixed regardless, it's possible because others
       | did it. There are tradeoffs we're willing to do.
       | 
       | Source: Firefox implementer of a lot of things around this,
       | editor of the Web Audio API standard.
        
         | patcon wrote:
         | Thank you for your words on this, and energy on everything
         | else!
        
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       (page generated 2025-02-15 23:00 UTC)