Is Your Website Still Using a Flash Player for Videos or Animations?
One of the latest trends seen in web design is being pushed by one of the major browser players today: Google. If your website design is still using Adobe Flash Player, then Google is about to make it a little more difficult for visitors to use your site. In December 2016, Google provided the roll-out plan for the gradual phase out of Adobe Flash Player with the goal of replacing it completely with HTML5 on the Chrome browser.
Starting in January, Google's Chrome browser began asking visitors if they want to use Flash Player when visiting a site that uses Flash. By Chrome 56 (released in February), Google plans to have this enabled for all users. Any user who still wants to use Flash at that point, will have to physically enable Flash in order to use it. Any organization that is still using Flash as part of their website needs to start making plans immediately to transition over to HTML5 for their audio and video web site components.
Google has posted announcements for quite some time regarding the eventual phase out of Flash, along with other major players like Apple and Adobe eluding to the eventual death of Flash as we know it. Although Flash is well-known as a tool that can create visually engaging pages, it is also known for its slow page loads and poor SEO optimization. With more and more users expecting quick response times on all devices, a tool like HTML5 which works seamlessly across multiple devices and platforms makes more sense for web development rather than a plug-in like Flash.
If you have questions about how to prepare your organization's websites for transition to HTML5 from Adobe Flash Player, please contact us. If you aren’t totally sure, but suspect your website might be using Flash, don’t hesitate to reach out, and we will be happy to take a look at your website for you.
