Flash has built up quite a notorious reputation for itself over the years so much so that many have vocally called for dropping this technology once and for all. Even Adobe has started to inch away from Flash as are many other online services. Facebook has now confirmed that it’s ditching Flash for online video playback in favor of HTML5. All videos you see on Facebook will now play in HTML5 by default and not Flash like before.
Facebook says that this change will best enable it “to continue to innovate quickly and at scale, given Facebook’s large size and complex needs.”
The social network mentioned in the blog post that initially the HTML5 player was only rolled out to a small set of browsers and over time it was expanded to more browsers, versions and operating systems. If you own a modern PC then chances are that you are already getting served with HTML5 video for some time now.
Some old browsers didn’t work well with the new standard through and issues like longer load times and bugs cropped up. That’s why Facebook waited until now to fix all of those issues and ship the HTML5 player to all browsers by default, with the exception of a small set that not a lot of people use anymore.
Facebook does clarify that even though it’s not using Flash anymore for serving video that doesn’t mean that Flash-based games are going anywhere, it promises to continue working with Adobe to ensure that the gaming experience on the world’s largest social network remains secure.