Google to phase out support to Flash Player in Chrome browser

Google plans to phase out support for Adobe's Flash Player in its Chrome browser. Only a small number of sites would be exempted with the company set to roll out the changes by the fourth quarter of 2016.

According to commentators, while Flash might have "historically" been a good way to present rich media online, Google clearly favoured HTML5, thanks to faster load times and lower power use.

Though Flash would continue to come bundled with Chrome, its presence would not be advertised by default. Where the Flash Player was the only viewing content on a site, users would need to actively switch it on for individual sites and enterprise Chrome users would also have the option of switching Flash off altogether.

Google would continue to extend support over the short-term for the top 10 domains using the player, including YouTube, Facebook, Yahoo, Twitch and Amazon. This "whitelist" would, however, be reviewed periodically, with sites removed if they no longer warranted an exception, and the exemption list would expire after a year.

According to a spokesperson for Adobe it was working with Google in its goal of "an industry-wide transition to Open Web standards," including the adoption of HTML5.

If a website offered HTML5, that would be the default experience and for sites that needed Flash, a prompt would show up at the top of the page when the user first visited the site, in Google's new scheme of things.

The prompt would give users the option of running or declining to run Flash on the site. Google said, if the user accepted, Chrome would advertise the presence of Flash Player and refresh the page. During subsequent visits to the site, the user's initial choice would likely  be accepted, though Google continued to work on options for future prompts.

According to Google, HTML5 presented a more integrated media experience with faster load times and lower power consumption. Google had earlier this year, said it would block the upload of display ads built in Flash from 30 June in AdWords and DoubleClick Digital Marketing, besides adopting other measures to reduce the role of the player. 

The Flash Player's track record for vulnerabilities had also not been good, with users facing a variety of threats, say commmentators.