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Google freezes Flash today

Staff Writer
By Staff Writer, ITWeb
Johannesburg, 01 Sep 2015
Google Chrome from today will stop all Flash adverts by default in its browser.
Google Chrome from today will stop all Flash adverts by default in its browser.

Google's Chrome will freeze Flash adverts by default on the browser from today, to improve its performance and the user experience.

This move is hoped to increase page-load speed and reduce power consumption and bring better performance to rich media on Chrome.

Google has been encouraging developers to use HTML5 rather than Flash for some time. Most Flash ads uploaded to AdWords, Google's advertising service, have been automatically converted to HTML5, which is similar, but more efficient when compared to Flash.

Developers are able to find out if any adverts are Flash here, and convert them to HTML5 here.

Tech blogger Liron Segev says if Google's decision wasn't announced, he doubts many people would have noticed. "Most developers stopped using Flash a long time ago, but this is a sign of its eventual demise."

This after an update last month, by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), to the IAB Display Creative Guidelines, which fully embrace HTML5 as the new standard for rich, immersive digital advertising on desktop and mobile screens.

In 2010, Apple's late CEO Steve Jobs said the company would not allow Flash products on any of its mobile devices, as he believed Flash sapped battery life, was not secure enough, did not perform well and could not be relied upon.

Joining the movement

E-commerce giant Amazon has said, from today, it will no longer accept Adobe Flash for rendering display ads.

"This is driven by recent browser setting updates from Google Chrome, and existing browser settings from Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari, that limit Flash display ad capabilities displayed on Web pages," says Amazon.

"This change ensures customers continue to have a positive, consistent experience on Amazon, and that display ads function properly for optimal performance," it states on its Web site.

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