YouTube has replaced Flash with HTML5 as its default format

It’s only a matter of time before the aging Adobe Flash that powers so much of the Internet dies off but YouTube is looking to speed things up a bit by switching out Flash for HTML5. While most videos on YouTube offered an HTML5 version of the video, Flash videos were still the default format and users would have to go out of their way to switch. However, now HTML5 is the default format. 

The slow death of Adobe Flash has been hastened — YouTube, which used the platform as the standard way to play its videos, has dumped Flash in favor of HTML5 for its default web player. The site will now use HTML5 video as standard in Chrome, Internet Explorer 11, Safari 8, and in beta versions of Firefox. YouTube engineer Richard Leider said the time had come to ditch the aging Flash in favor of HTML5 as the latter, used in smart TVs and other streaming devices, had benefits that “extend beyond web browsers.” Leider called out HTML5’s adoption of Adaptive Bitrate (ABR) as key in its switch. YouTube says ABR, which lets the site change resolution for viewers based on network quality, has reduced buffering by more than 50 percent globally, and by as much as 80 percent on heavily-congested networks.