The Unwanted Pop-out
Google Chrome supports a feature called Picture-in-Picture (PiP), which allows you to pop a video out of its webpage and let it float over other tabs. Recently, Chrome introduced an “Auto-PiP” functionality for certain websites. If you are watching a video (or participating in a web conference) and you switch to a different tab, Chrome might automatically activate PiP, tearing the video out of the original tab and floating it in the corner of your screen. While some find this convenient for multitasking, others find it highly distracting to have a video forcefully follow them around the browser when they explicitly switched tabs to focus on something else.
Disabling Auto-PiP
To retain manual control over your video windows and stop Google Chrome from automatically activating Picture-in-Picture when you switch tabs, you must revoke the specific site permission.
Unlike a global setting, Chrome currently manages Auto-PiP on a per-site basis via the permissions menu. Navigate to the website that is exhibiting this behavior (for example, a video conferencing site). Look at the extreme left side of the address bar, immediately before the “https://”, and click on the Site Information icon (it looks like a small padlock or a settings dial). In the dropdown menu that appears, select Site settings. A new Chrome settings tab will open specifically for that website. Scroll down the list of permissions until you find the one explicitly labelled Automatic picture-in-picture. Click the dropdown menu next to it and change the setting from “Allow” or “Ask” to Block. Close the settings tab. The website will now be completely barred from triggering PiP unless you manually click the dedicated PiP button.