If we needed more evidence that Flash is living out its final moments, this might be it.
Google announced yesterday it will stop Flash video ads from displaying in its popular Chrome browser starting Sept. 1. It’s a major blow for the beleaguered Adobe-created technology because Chrome is the world’s most popular browser, controlling 63 percent of the market.
The decision to halt Flash ads was made in June in beta, but will roll out to all users next month as a way to “improve performance for users.” Embedded videos that are powered Flash will still be loaded and Flash-based ads can still be seen if the user right-clicks on the “Run this plugin” option.
There’s been a deafening chorus of calls from various Web companies to stomp out Flash. Firefox said in July it will stop serving Flash ads and Amazon announced that also on Sept. 1, it will no longer allow Flash ads on Amazon.com or on the Amazon Advertising Platform.
The reason for the flood of anti-Flash sentiment stems from the “software’s myriad insecurities due to old code that hackers can exploit across Adobe products,” as Digiday previously reported. That vulnerability was exposed a few weeks ago when hackers injected malware in Yahoo’s Flash-powered ad network, leaving millions of Windows users exposed.
Adobe has not returned Digiday’s request for comment.