Google yanking H.264 video out of Chrome | Deep Tech - CNET News

Google again seeks to accelerate the evolution of the Internet – in its own vision; this move also makes me wonder how long the Adobe/Google enemy-of-my-enemy “partnership” will last

Google just fired a broadside in the Web's codec wars.

With its alternative WebM video-encoding technology now entering the marketplace, Google announced plans today to remove built-in Chrome support for a widely used rival codec called H.264 favored by Apple and Microsoft. The move places Google instead firmly in the camp of browser makers Mozilla and Opera, who ardently desire basic Web technologies to be unencumbered by patent restrictions.

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But not everybody is so happy. Don MacAskill, chief executive of photo- and video-sharing site SmugMug, bemoaned the move. "Bottom line: Much more expensive to build video on the Web, and much worse user experience. And only Adobe wins," he tweeted. "I want WebM. Badly. But I need time for hardware penetration to happen...This means the cheapest way to develop video on the Web is to use Flash primarily. Before, we could do HTML5 with Flash fallback."

Google yanking H.264 video out of Chrome | Deep Tech - CNET News