Adobe’s Flash Player, a plugin that has previously allowed millions of users to enjoy games and video content online, is slowly dying a well-deserved death. Of late, the package has become more of a security risk than a necessary part of the web, and companies are beginning to crack down.
Google is the latest and probably most significant thus far, announcing that it will soon disallow the use of Flash content in its Chrome browser.
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What does this mean for Flash? Well, that could mean anything between 41% and 56% of web users (depending on which monitor’s statistics you intend using) will no longer be able to use the plugin.
This does however have its security benefits. A recent list by Japanese telecoms operator, NTT Group, suggested that Flash Player is the most frequently attacked plugin (by way of exploits), and that doesn’t seem to be slowing down at all. Rather, the contrary.
With the prevalence of HTML5, and some of the web’s major web portals adopting the language, it’s clear that Flash Player doesn’t have much longer to go in the mainstream web.
Of course, if you fancy blocking Flash Player already, Chrome allows users to only run plugins when asked, or explicitly required.
Google was also swift to note that the top ten web pages on the planet will be exempt from this move, including the likes of Facebook, YouTube and Yahoo.
