During his time at Apple, Steve Jobs was a strong opponent of Adobe’s Flash Player, however, this application is still here, years after the former Apple CEO passed away.
However, were he alive, he would be rejoicing at the rate at which major companies in the internet space are ditching Adobe Flash Player in favor of the faster and more reliable HTML5. The latest high-profile company to make its intentions clear is Google.
It has already done this with YouTube, the leading video sharing platform in the world. However, the search engine giant is not yet done. According to the latest reports, Google Chrome will soon get rid of any use of Adobe Flash Player, but this will not be happening all at once. Google will start the change as from next month where about 90% of the entire Flash content will be blocked.
This transition will then go on until December when the entire Google Chrome will now longer be based on Adobe Flash Player, instead, everything will be revolving around the mother of internet – HTML5. Still, users still accessing websites that are based on the faulty Adobe Flash Player will still be able to access their content, but they will have to give out permission first before the content is played. As for the HTML5 content, Google Chrome will launch an auto-play service for all websites.
Even though Google Chrome is parting ways with the famous Flash Player, the company had some warm words for Adobe, especially with its role in making the internet a livelier place to be, with respect to gaming, videos as well as animation, among others. With HTML5, users will be guaranteed of better security, an area that has plagued Adobe Flash Player for ages, as well as faster load times.
This move will be a huge blow for Adobe Flash Player given that Google Chrome lives on a huge number of devices. In fact, the latest stats show that Chrome has a market share of about half the entire browser market, which includes desktops, phones, and tablets.
In Unusual Suspects, Kevin Spacey’s character remarks: “the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled is convincing the world he doesn’t exist.”
The greatest trick Steve Jobs ever pulled was convincing the world that Flash was too slow and a security risk. Why? Because it was neither; and by blocking its use on IOS, Jobs guaranteed Apple something it would otherwise have been unable to obtain: 40% of the dollar revenue of every application that would ever run on IOS- forever.
Quite the trick. A massive monopoly, hundreds of billions of dollars out of the pockets of developers, and no one even noticed.
Sad, really.