V3 reports on the decision to go ahead with the plan revealed in June. It is working to eliminate the ageing Flash from webpages and convert as many developers as possible to the much more modern HTML5.
Chrome will now intelligently pause Flash content on websites. Important elements such as videos and games will remain alive but non-essential content such as advertisements or banner messages will be prevented from running. This “significantly” reduces power consumption and increases browser performance and responsiveness, according to Google’s original blog post about the change.
Naturally, this will impact some adverts displayed on the web. Google is working with ad providers to ensure that as many as possible switch to HTML5 in the near future.
Chrome users will be able to control the pausing of Flash media and can enable any frozen content by clicking on it. Alternatively, the feature can be set to allow all content to run or to prevent anything from running until the user approves it. It has been usable in Chrome beta builds since launch but will go public on September 1.
Chrome is the latest in a long line of products that have publicly shunned Flash and told others to do likewise. Even Adobe is now admitting defeat and is even working with Google to help improve performance on the content that still remains on websites.
The once go-to standard for interactive media on websites has quickly fallen out of favour due to sluggish performance, high battery drain and a series of serious security vulnerabilities. The much more modern HTML5 can replicate nearly all of the features of Flash directly in the browser, increasing performance, increasing battery life and allowing effects to scale responsively according to the device that they are being played on.
Technology companies including Mozilla, Facebook and Amazon have all publicly moved away from using Flash to power their websites. Earlier this year, Google’s YouTube finally canned its Flash player in favour of a much sleeker HTML5 one.
From September 1, Google will now start to prevent Chrome from playing Flash content. On the same day, Amazon is also banning all Flash-based advertisements on its website, putting yet another nail into the once-revered web technology’s coffin.
