Android By Russell Holly May. 23, 2014 4:11 pm
Despite Google’s repeated efforts to make sure all of their products are wholesome and free from adult content, it looks like PornHub has somehow figured out how to enable Chromecast streaming directly from Chrome for Android.
A couple of months ago, the beta version of Chrome for Android gained an unstable flag for the ability to cast video that was playing in the browser directly to your Chromecast. It’s a cool idea, especially if you want to check out something from a site that doesn’t actively support video flinging, like DailyMotion or Twitch.TV until very recently. If you’ve checked out the unstable flag in the Chrome beta, you’ll quickly learn that it is called unstable for a very good reason and it has remained in beta because of this. It looks like the folks at PornHub aren’t big fans of waiting, however, because the service is now working remarkably well on the mobile version of their site.
Choosing to play a video on PornHub through the current stable release of Chrome for Android will reveal a Chromecast icon in the top left hand corner of the screen, floating over the menu button that you would otherwise see there. If you tap this, and you are on a WiFi network with a Chromecast, you’ll see that you can cast your video to the television. The video will load just like something that had been casted by one of the many Chromecast supported apps, right down to the playback controls on your lockscreen. This function doesn’t appear to work on any of the other sites tested after making this discovery, and if your head to flags in Chrome for Android you’ll see that this Chromecast feature is marked disabled with no way to enable it.
There’s no telling if this is the PornHub folks having figured out a clever workaround or not, especially after a report that shows most people watch porn on their phones, but it’s safe to say that this feature is unlikely to remain a happy accident for too long. Either Google will wield their usual heavy hand over the situation, or more sites will adopt the feature shortly and we’ll have lots of web based Chromecast action from the mobile browser. Either way, you’d better go test it out right now. Don’t forget the tissues.
Screenshots courtesy of Michael Lipson
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A couple of months ago, the beta version of Chrome for Android gained an unstable flag for the ability to cast video that was playing in the browser directly to your Chromecast. It’s a cool idea, especially if you want to check out something from a site that doesn’t actively support video flinging, like DailyMotion or Twitch.TV until very recently. If you’ve checked out the unstable flag in the Chrome beta, you’ll quickly learn that it is called unstable for a very good reason and it has remained in beta because of this. It looks like the folks at PornHub aren’t big fans of waiting, however, because the service is now working remarkably well on the mobile version of their site.
Choosing to play a video on PornHub through the current stable release of Chrome for Android will reveal a Chromecast icon in the top left hand corner of the screen, floating over the menu button that you would otherwise see there. If you tap this, and you are on a WiFi network with a Chromecast, you’ll see that you can cast your video to the television. The video will load just like something that had been casted by one of the many Chromecast supported apps, right down to the playback controls on your lockscreen. This function doesn’t appear to work on any of the other sites tested after making this discovery, and if your head to flags in Chrome for Android you’ll see that this Chromecast feature is marked disabled with no way to enable it.
There’s no telling if this is the PornHub folks having figured out a clever workaround or not, especially after a report that shows most people watch porn on their phones, but it’s safe to say that this feature is unlikely to remain a happy accident for too long. Either Google will wield their usual heavy hand over the situation, or more sites will adopt the feature shortly and we’ll have lots of web based Chromecast action from the mobile browser. Either way, you’d better go test it out right now. Don’t forget the tissues.
Screenshots courtesy of Michael Lipson
More...
