Andre Yoskowitz
12 Feb 2012 20:44
This looks to be the end for Adobe's Flash.
Apple started the trend by blocking Flash from its iOS devices. The company then stopped developing its Flash player for Android and BlackBerry within a few months. Finally, Google's latest update to the Chrome browser does not support the most recent version of Flash.
Now, it appears that Internet Explorer for Windows 8 on ARM devices won't support Flash, either.
Windows 8, at least for ARM-based devices, will not support web plug-ins at all, due to their propensity to lead to unstable performance and worse battery life. Plug-in free browsers will be the future, as HTML5 and JavaScript continue to improve, but Flash still remains as one of the top standards, making its very quick demise somewhat surprising.
As Flash quickly disappears on mobiles, it begs the question as to how long the one-time online video standard will remain viable in desktop browsers.