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Chrome 55 Now Blocks Flash, Uses HTML5 By Default (bleepingcomputer.com) 98

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.
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Chrome 55 Now Blocks Flash, Uses HTML5 By Default

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  • by tlambert ( 566799 ) on Saturday December 03, 2016 @02:00PM (#53415589)

    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 use the Disable HTML5 Autoplay extension. It allows for whitelisting.

    • by Talla ( 95956 ) on Saturday December 03, 2016 @03:49PM (#53416085)

      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.

    • 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?

  • About time... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by __aaclcg7560 ( 824291 ) on Saturday December 03, 2016 @02:03PM (#53415629)

    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.

    • Re:About time... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ledow ( 319597 ) on Saturday December 03, 2016 @02:15PM (#53415677) Homepage

      Education:

      If it's not HTML5, they are required to push out an iPad app because there will be something that doesn't work on Safari. Android / Chromebook apps will never appear or will have to wait for the HTML5 version, and it will never be properly navigable across all devices with bare HTML5 (people keep telling me this, I've yet to see a decent demonstration that doesn't just send you to two different places). Hell, these people still use Quicktime...

      Banking:

      Our business banking partner insisted on using IE until this year. When they then realised it was going to die and they had to upgrade for Windows 10? We now HAVE to use Firefox ESR editions with a specific .NET Framework, an ActiveX-like control and exceptions for scripting etc. on their domains (their software tries to auto-add them on install to IE too!). If anything, we've taken two steps back in terms of security there, and still have a browser that is NOT our default browser just for banking.

      Video streaming:

      They all started off saying they'll support HTML5, but some of the HTML5 versions are literally play and stop and that's it. A load of sites break when you try to just play a movie, and how do I stop it auto-playing? Oh, there's a plugin/extension/js for that.

      We need to get off our arses and just say "Fuck off. Plain HTML5 and nothing else or we don't visit". I still run across pages that want Java and all kinds of junk.

      Relying on a plugin of any kind, even Flash, (plugins have to be native code) is inherently not cross-platform and is a security risk. You have no idea if that plugin's breaking open your SSL sessions and handling other data from sites insecurely.

      Trouble is, the places that MATTER (i.e. schools which are teaching the children how to use a computer, and banks which are holding your money to ransom if you're anybody) don't give a shit. We're still fighting banks on "but this is more secure" when they make us run closed code in a closed plugin tied into closed sites on a particular browser that's not your normal browser and is - by definition - outdated. It shouldn't be.

      The quicker Chrome blocks all this shit, and Microsoft Edge and Safari follow, the quicker people will have to fix it to make things work as before.

      Don't let the banks pull the "You must use IE shit" any more. Literally just switch them off and go "We warned you, now you'll need to follow best practice as we've said for decades".

      • by antdude ( 79039 )

        Another problem is the old version like old softwares on old devices. :(

      • Trouble is, the places that MATTER (i.e. schools which are teaching the children how to use a computer, and banks which are holding your money to ransom if you're anybody) don't give a shit. We're still fighting banks on "but this is more secure" when they make us run closed code in a closed plugin tied into closed sites on a particular browser that's not your normal browser and is - by definition - outdated. It shouldn't be.

        No offense, but the biggest problem I've run into over the last year are web sites that use every damn proprietary feature of Chrome and try to itemize workarounds for every other browser. My problem isn't coming across web sites that still push Flash and Java, it's sites that are largely broken in Firefox and IE/Edge, and totally broken in Pale Moon.

        Now that Chrome and the Blink engine are the most popular web technologies on the planet, I'm finding it hard to find sites that work in any other web browser

    • by PJ6 ( 1151747 )

      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.

      That's what you get for using the web for applications that should have been thick clients.

      • That's what you get for using the web for applications that should have been thick clients.

        My job is to take care of whatever rolls down the hill, deal with it or shovel it somewhere else. Applications is above my pay grade.

  • 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.

  • by MikeDataLink ( 536925 ) on Saturday December 03, 2016 @03:56PM (#53416111) Homepage Journal

    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.

    • There is a new option in the menu under content for "Flash". It appears to default to "Detect and run important Flash (recommended)."

      I've yet to see something blocked. However you can change this to "Block sites running flash" and then it prompts right click to run flash on all the content. However Isflashinstalled.com will still say yes.

  • 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?

    • by Anonymous Coward

      Google has a spotty record with delivering inferior experiences to other browsers, including YouTube. They don't seem willing to use feature-detection as they should, often relying on flimsy server-side UA sniffing. When combined with their opportunistic pushing of pre-standardized tech into Chrome like QUIC, and their lack of responsiveness to complaints or questions about cross-browser issues with their services, you have a situation that's difficult to discern from intentional sabotage, since Chrome (of

      • by jonwil ( 467024 )

        In this case I was referring to the comment in the summary that "Exceptions will also be made automatically for your more frequently-visited sites -- which, for many users, will include YouTube" and the fact that YouTube should be detecting that someone is running a new enough Chrome version to handle HTML5 video and never serve it Flash video unless you explicitly ask for it (i.e. there shouldn't be a need for an automatic exception for YouTube in Chrome 55 unless the user has explicitly told YouTube that

  • 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.

  • 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...

  • 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 restarti
  • Flash Player peasant using YouTube Flash Player extension to play stutter-free video in his netbook (me) is worried....
  • 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?

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