It was nice knowing you, Flash
Posted: Fri Jan 30, 2015 8:48 pm
Well, this is it for Flash. While it will obviously hang around the corners of the web for many years, its days of 90%+ install rates are going to drop incredibly quick now. YouTube made the announcement this week that many of us have been waiting on for years. Flash is no longer the default player, in favor of the HTML5 player. And of course due to the power of the Web, everyone will be updated very quickly, since just a video thumbnail click will load the new player.
YouTube was the last bastion of Flash, and the last website really pushing Flash installs and updates. While website-embedded Flash content (such as animating banners, rich buttons, etc.) that was popular in the early 2000's brought Flash quickly into the 90%+ install rates it saw early on, the fad of Flash components on websites died out fairly quickly right around the time YouTube started taking off. This allowed Flash to seamlessly bridge the gap between the two without missing a beat or losing significant marketshare. But of course, once the whims of one website controlled the future of Flash, it was only a matter of time before it would be crushed like a bug.
I have been using the HTML5 YouTube player for over 4 years now, as I am sure many of you have, too. It works great, and I bet many people won't even notice a difference. In fact, some advances in HTML5 video may make it work even better, with less buffering.
YouTube was the last bastion of Flash, and the last website really pushing Flash installs and updates. While website-embedded Flash content (such as animating banners, rich buttons, etc.) that was popular in the early 2000's brought Flash quickly into the 90%+ install rates it saw early on, the fad of Flash components on websites died out fairly quickly right around the time YouTube started taking off. This allowed Flash to seamlessly bridge the gap between the two without missing a beat or losing significant marketshare. But of course, once the whims of one website controlled the future of Flash, it was only a matter of time before it would be crushed like a bug.
I have been using the HTML5 YouTube player for over 4 years now, as I am sure many of you have, too. It works great, and I bet many people won't even notice a difference. In fact, some advances in HTML5 video may make it work even better, with less buffering.
