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Google To Drop Support For H.264 In Chrome

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the shot-in-the-air dept.

Steve writes "Google just made a bold move in the HTML5 video tag battle: even though H.264 is widely used and WebM is not, the search giant has announced it will drop support for the former in Chrome. The company has not done so yet, but it has promised it will in the next couple of months. Google wants to give content publishers and developers using the HTML5 video tag an opportunity to make any necessary changes to their websites."

3 of 765 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Market Share? by diegocg · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yes, note that firefox doen't ship H.264 either. In Europe, Firefox + Chrome share is 52.69%, IE 37.52%.

    Also, Google owns Youtube and is working to make every video available in VP8.

  2. Re:Pretty soon... by tweak13 · · Score: 5, Informative

    It doesn't get around it. Unless you live somewhere enlightened enough to not allow software patents, it probably isn't legal to use without a license for the patented tech.

  3. Re:Chrome+Firefox by synnack · · Score: 5, Informative

    Actually, Opera also supports WebM, so using VP8 only will get you Firefox, Chrome and Opera, wich is over 60% of the market.