Autoplay of YouTube videos in background tabs

Description of the issue:
Brave app on iPhone starts playing YouTube in background tabs; with sound.

Steps to Reproduce (add as many as necessary): 1. 2. 3.
Version A:

  1. Long press a YouTube link to open in new tab
  2. Keep browsing on current tab without switching to tab just created.

Steps to Reproduce (add as many as necessary): 1. 2. 3.
Version B:

  1. Pick up phone to look something up
  2. Launch brave
  3. Brave opens to whatever I was last on

Actual Result (gifs and screenshots are welcome!):
Version A: Brave starts playing video in blind tab I just launched in background. If I open another background tab pointing to a YouTube video it will stop the original one and start the latest one. All while these tabs have never been visited. With sound; that’s the way I know it’s happening.

Version B: Brave just starts playing whatever video I must have played last. At original volume. Then I have to go find that tab to stop the video.

Expected result:
I expect the video not to start playing until I go to the respective tab and hit the play button.
All the settings I can find have been set to not auto play. When I open a YouTube link not in the background it will generally also start autoplaying but at least I get to hit “unmute” so it’s not just blaring out to the world.

Reproduces how often:
Version A: about 70% of the time I take described steps
Version B: about 40% of the time I launch brave app

Operating System and Brave Version(See the About Brave page in the main menu):

Version 1.69.2 (172)
BraveCore 1.69.172 (128.0.6613.138)
Device iPhone12,3 (iOS 17.6.1)

Additional Information:
Sad to say I didn’t look into it when it started behaving this way. It has been most of 2024 I would say.

We don’t change functionality by default, there is also a fine line between playing a video or stream in the background. Most people want videos to keep playing in the background.

The only 2 items that would affect it:

  • Disabling Experimental list in Shields, to disallow background play on www.youtube.com
  • Also on iOS “Enable Background Audio”. could affect it.