Adobe Flash Now Officially a Part of Google Chrome

MacGene noted that Google has announced plans to include Flash with Chrome. This step will make Chrome easier for Mom & Pop to use, but comes with a host of issues that have been discussed here before. I expect them to announce Silverlight Thursday.

Comments

I'm ok with it.

[Toonol]

The inclusion of Flash doesn't generate any issues that every other browser doesn't have. Since 99% of people end up installing Flash, it's probably just as well to include it. Those people who don't want it are all computer savvy enough to turn it off; for the rest, it's a service to have it included.

Stupid Media Spin To This Story

[WiseWeasel]

So here's the story; Google releases a new Chromium build that does three things:
1) A copy of the Flash plugin gets installed when Chrome/Chromium is installed, regardless of whether you already have it.
2) Chrome/Chromium now runs its copy of the Flash plugin in a sandbox, so that malicious Flash content can't access your computer.
3) Chrome/Chromium will now auto-scan for updates to the Flash plugin and install them in an automated fashion upon launch.

So basically, the real story is that this is a security update for Chromium, mitigating many of the vulnerabilities with the current setup of having the Flash runtime be run with user privileges from a central location for all browsers, and managed by no one at all.

There's also an announcement of a partnership between Google, Mozilla and Adobe to work on a new API for browser plugins, presumably involving browsers taking a more active role in managing their plugins, and allowing certain features like sandboxing and implementation of some type of common interface standards.

What we get instead is reporting of Google thwarting Apple's putative war on Flash, somehow breathing new life into the beleaguered standard, where Apple would surely do the opposite of whatever Google is doing. I'd not be surprised to see Safari adopt some very similar features in the near future, as they all make pretty good sense, at least for their desktop browser. If only these "journalists" knew enough about what they were reporting to recognize their need to eat crow at that point.