"HTML5 by Default" to become the standard in Chrome 55

Aug 9, 2016 19:05 GMT  ·  By

Google is delivering on its promise made in May to kill Flash and replace it with HTML5 by default. The company has announced today plans regarding Flash support in upcoming Chrome versions.

Google's Anthony LaForge, the engineer tasked with managing Flash in Chrome, has said that, starting with Chrome's next version, Chrome 53, set for release in September, the company intends to block any Flash content that's "loaded behind the scenes."

Google will block "behind the scenes" Flash content in Chrome 53

This term refers to Flash content not visible on the page, usually small pieces of code used to fingerprint users, in most cases employed by analytics firms.

Based on Google's Chrome statistics, this accounts for 90 percent of all Flash files loaded in a Chrome browser today.

The move comes to complement a change made in Chrome in September 2015, when the company decided to pause less important Flash content in Chrome 42, requiring users to click on the object before playing.

"HTML5 by Default" will arrive in Chrome 55

But the good news doesn't end here. LaForge also announced that, by the end of the year, with the release of Chrome 55, the company plans to make HTML5 the default experience for viewing audio and video content in Chrome.

This means that, for any website offering multimedia content, Chrome will first look for the HTML5 version, and then, only if the HTML5 version is not found, it will allow the browser to play it via Flash.

However, this does not mean webmasters are allowed to slack on their jobs. For those sites, Google still plans to block Flash content and only allow it to play if the user clicks a button inside a notification they'll receive.

In Flash-related news, Adobe has announced today that, in August 2016, Flash won't receive any security updates.