Firefox Starts Blocking Non-Essential Flash Content Next Month

Flash is gradually being phased out online in light of the stability, performance and security issues that it opens up web browsers to. Mozilla today detailed how it’s going to handle Flash content in Firefox going forward. Starting next month, Firefox is going to block all non-essential Flash content while keeping support for legacy Flash content. This is being done in the interest of improving security, page load times and browser responsiveness.

Firefox will continue to block specific Flash content that’s invisible to users. Mozilla expects that this will reduce Flash crashes and hangs by up to ten percent. To ensure that there are no problems with website compatibility, Mozilla is limiting the changes to a curated list of Flash content which can be replaced with HTML.

Starting next year, Flash will require click-to-active approval from users before a website any activate the Flash plugin for any content. Mozilla advises websites that currently use Flash or Silverlight for games or video should adopt HTML technologies as soon as possible. Firefox will be dropping support for all NPAPI plugins excluding Flash in March 2017.

There’s nothing that you have to do to make sure that this change doesn’t impact you. It’s up to those who own and operate websites to ensure that they make the transition from Flash to ensure that their users continue to receive a great experience without having to concern themselves with what’s going on behind the scenes.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: Web
Tags: adobe flash, Firefox, Mozilla