Google ready to kill Flash

• Chrome set to disable Flash by default
• Exceptions will be made for some sites

 

GOOGLE’S war on Flash continues as it moves to a HTML5-only future. In a plan outlined recently, Flash will be disabled by default in the fourth quarter of this year in Chrome. Embedded Flash content will not run in the browser and JavaScript attempts to detect the plugin will not find it
 
Whenever Chrome detects that a site is trying to use the plugin, it will ask the user if they want to enable it or not. It will also trap attempts to redirect users to Adobe's Flash download page and similarly offer to enable the plugin.
 
There will be a few exceptions to this. This list includes YouTube, Facebook, Twitch, and Amazon. But this is also temporary. The plan is to remove sites from the list whenever possible. Twitch, for example, is switching to HTML5 streaming,
 
The exceptions will remain in place for only one year. After the fourth quarter of 2017, Flash will need to be explicitly enabled on every site that tries to use it.
 
This is hardly a unique strategy. All major browsers now severely restrict Flash and other plugins, if not outright prohibiting them. The real problem is that far too many sites still use it. Many casual gaming sites depend on Flash and there is no direct way to get the games running on HTML5. So Flash will be with us for sometime to come.
 
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