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Chrome 55 Now Blocks Flash, Uses HTML5 By Default (bleepingcomputer.com)
An anonymous reader quotes Bleeping Computer: Chrome 55, released earlier this week, now blocks all Adobe Flash content by default, according to a plan set in motion by Google engineers earlier this year... While some of the initial implementation details of the "HTML5 By Default" plan changed since then, Flash has been phased out in favor of HTML5 as the primary technology for playing multimedia content in Chrome.
Google's plan is to turn off Flash and use HTML5 for all sites. Where HTML5 isn't supported, Chrome will prompt users and ask them if they want to run Flash to view multimedia content. The user's option would be remembered for subsequent visits, but there's also an option in the browser's settings section, under Settings > Content Settings > Flash > Manage Exceptions, where users can add the websites they want to allow Flash to run by default.
Exceptions will also be made automatically for your more frequently-visited sites -- which, for many users, will include YouTube. And Chrome will continue to ship with Flash -- as well as an option to re-enable Flash on all sites.
Google's plan is to turn off Flash and use HTML5 for all sites. Where HTML5 isn't supported, Chrome will prompt users and ask them if they want to run Flash to view multimedia content. The user's option would be remembered for subsequent visits, but there's also an option in the browser's settings section, under Settings > Content Settings > Flash > Manage Exceptions, where users can add the websites they want to allow Flash to run by default.
Exceptions will also be made automatically for your more frequently-visited sites -- which, for many users, will include YouTube. And Chrome will continue to ship with Flash -- as well as an option to re-enable Flash on all sites.
they could fix the crashing. Chrome is unusable anymore.
So does it still let you "always click to flash"?
It'd be a real pain in the ass if, by watching one video, I have to always allow Facebook (major example) to run flash content, rather than just the specific flash content I authorize.
Also: where's the "click to run HTML5 video", please?
It would seem that Google has made a product that most of us won't want to use for the foreseeable future.
Society is once again better off thanks to Trump! This would never have happened under Clinton's watch.
I tried the no Flash plugin once and I ended white listing most of the sites I visit. And the scary part is that many of them are financial sites.
It's too bad Adobe can't write secure software. Maybe they should hire smarter H1-bs or get smarter people at their Indian offices.
As young help desk technician eight years ago, Flash was almost as worst as the intranet sites that required IE6 to work. Every month a new version of Flash comes out to break the intranet sites for users because the program auto updates on its own and the intranet team was always two weeks behind on updating Flash on the web servers. Every month I got tickets to remote into systems to rollback to the previous version of Flash to get the intranet sites working again.
As a computer security technician today, Silverlight is becoming the new Flash with problematic installs that refuse to update properly. Every month the Nessus scan spits out a list of systems that I remote into to run a Microsoft Fix-It program to uninstall the older version and reinstall the baseline version.
Many many users are reporting that Chrome doesnt show the on screen keyboard when focus is given to inputs, you have to manually open the keyboard. Been this way for a dozen or so major versions.
Why oh fscking why will they not toggle that shite to "off"?! And yes, I am aware of various snooping plugins that disable it - which also fail to give transport controls to gifv, for example.
Great news, except that:
a) there are still hundreds of sites out there that use Flash and have no way to change this easily (homestarrunner.com, for example)
b) HTML5 is a poor substitute for Flash video: it lacks controls that you could get with your average flash video player, and anyone that ever had to support multiple platforms will know that the HTML5 video format support matrix across browsers is... well... not good (basically, you need a different format for each platform)
b) there are things that you can't even DO with HTML5, but are readily available in flash. Notably, filesystem access.
Yes, flash is a piece of turd. But it is a WORKING piece of turd, and HTML5 won't change that.
I use the Disable HTML5 Autoplay extension. It allows for whitelisting.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
For years I've not had Flash in my default browser, and maybe once or twice per year I come across I site that has Flash content I want to see. In those cases I launch my other browser.
I have no doubt that many of the sites you visit have *something* in flash, but what? Ads? A stupid animated splash page that just wastes your time?
Until early 2010, Flash was needed for Youtube, which was the last site I used it, or saw many people using it. Once Youtube had html5 as an option, six years ago, I've only really seen Flash used for crap I'd prefer to avoid anyway, such as ads. I can think of one exception - a Cisco tool I'm forced to learn for certification.
stopped updating chrome a month or two ago , only use it for a few sites now and now use a customized firefox i have made....no longer buying either of them as a proper browser.
Also: where's the "click to run HTML5 video", please?
Even more importantly, where's the click to start downloading HTML5 video? Most HTML5 video can be stopped from playing automatically but it will still start downloading, and drain the quota on a metered connection in no time.
I have Chrome 55 installed, but flash is still working in all the tests I do without prompting me. Even going to isflashinstalled.com works.
Mike @ The Geek Pub. Let's Make Stuff!
I would have thought that Google would detect browsers that do HTML5 video and make YouTube serve HTML5 video to such browsers by default and only enable Flash if the user has specifically gone into the YouTube settings and disabled HTML5 for some reason.
Or are there still things on YouTube that aren't served as HTML5 even to the latest version of Chrome?
So for a lot of people that means no more HW accelerated video. If your card gets blacklisted say hello to 100% cpu usage decoding anything. That's if it was supported in the first place.
On top of that you get auto video downloading and that wonderful audio API you can't turn off and is mainly used to fingerprint your browser.
I imagine companies like Armor games aren't going to be too happy about this, as their chief revenue source is being blocked by default.
User should not need to install an extension just to access essential browser functions. You never know when an extension update would quietly add in spyware or adware.
Not working for me either. However something has changed. Under settings it still is listed to "detect and run important Flash" which is also the "recommended" settings. These settings were not part of Chrome 54 (just checked on my laptop, then updated and then they appeared).
It doesn't seem to be blocking flash for me. Maybe all Flash is important right now...
I checked an assumption mid posting and forgot to change my title.
if you're retarded enough to think everyone on the internet is going to proofread and use proper grammar and composition on a freaking forum then you're an idiot and need a reality check.
OP wrote like a Millennial talking out of his ass. For someone claiming to be a university graduate, I found that contradiction hard to believe.
[...] thinking you're superior by pointing out spelling/grammar/composition mistakes you fucking grammar nazi.
I've been on Slashdot for 17 years, I don't think I've ever been a grammar nazi. Do I get a virtual gold star for that?
It's unreliable. With a lot of vids if you try to skip past the HEEEY KIDS, IT'S ME STEEVEEEOO AND IN THIS VIDEO IM GONNA SHOW YOU THE ABSULUTE BESTEST WAY TO DO THAT THING YOU WANT TO DO THAT I'M GONNA SHOW YOU HOW TO DO SOON AS I CONVINCE YOU HOW KEWL I AM. I mean, most vids have 1-2 minutes you can fast forward past before they finally get to it. With HTML 5 it often goes into an infinite loading screen until you restart the vid.
I also have trouble with pausing a vid, doing something, then restarting it. Maybe 1/4 of the time it goes into the infinite loading bug.
Finally, don't even think of closing your laptop halfway through a vid. You'll have to restart the vid to continue watching after opening the laptop.
some browsers still can't play MP4 - Need both Ogg and MP4 apparently and that is a royal pain in the ass.
Flash Player peasant using YouTube Flash Player extension to play stutter-free video in his netbook (me) is worried....
So does it still let you "always click to flash"?
It'd be a real pain in the ass if, by watching one video, I have to always allow Facebook (major example) to run flash content, rather than just the specific flash content I authorize.
Also: where's the "click to run HTML5 video", please?
I watch CNN, BBC, ABC and YOUTUBE on my cellphone and laptop. BBC is still using flash, and some of CNN's videos are also in flash. And of course tubeyou still has mulitude of videos in backwards flash. Has anyone written a converter?
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
Steve Jobs was heavily criticized back in 2010 for his stance on Flash. He was right. Why did everybody have such an issue with him then?
Yet somehow Google Finance still says "Adobe Flash Player is required for interactive charts". There is no HTML5 version. The non-flash placeholder is a PNG.
It's like the Chrome devs don't talk to the Finance devs.