Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Computing
  3. News

Firefox will begin blocking specific, unnecessary Flash content, starting in August

Kevin Parrish
By

firefox 55 adds webvr support
Kārlis Dambrāns/Flickr
The days of a Flash-flooded Internet are seemingly (finally) coming to a close, as Mozilla said in a blog posted on Wednesday that starting in August, Firefox will automatically block certain Flash-based, “invisible” content that’s not relevant to the user experience. The list of blocked Flash content that can be replaced with HTML will be small at first to ensure website compatibility. However, this list will grow over time.

Later on in 2016, Mozilla will add to its black list the practice of using Flash to check content viewability, which is a method of measuring advertising. According to Mozilla, by blocking this content, Firefox performance will improve, along with device battery life. The company suggests that advertisers who use Flash to measure viewability should switch to the Intersection Observer API, which is based on HTML.

Recommended Videos

The move to eliminate Flash in Firefox doesn’t stop there. In 2017, Mozilla will inject Firefox with a click-to-play approval feature preventing all Flash content from automatically playing. That said, web sites that rely on Flash or Silverlight for their videos and games are urged to move to HTML technology “as soon as possible.” Firefox currently supports Google Widevine and Adobe Primetime for encrypted video playback.

Related

Reducing the use of Adobe Flash on the internet is part of an overall move to eliminate the use of browser plugins and making the World Wide Web more secure for surfers. Plugins, especially the one for Adobe Flash, are often targets of hackers, in addition to causing instability problems and performance issues. The move to HTML 5 essentially eliminates the need for Flash.

“Over the past few years, Firefox has implemented Web APIs to replace functionality that was formerly provided only by plugins,” reports Mozilla’s Benjamin Smedberg. “This includes audio/video playback and streaming capabilities, clipboard integration, fast 2D and 3D graphics, WebSocket networking, and microphone/camera access. As websites have switched from Flash to other web technologies, the plugin crash rate in Firefox has dropped significantly.”

In a chart provided by Mozilla, the crash rate of Firefox plug-ins seemingly continued to climb until Google switched to HTML5 video playback on YouTube. Crashes continue to decline after Facebook switched to HTML5 video as well, but the chart still shows highs and lows as other sites still rely on Adobe Flash for video playback, advertising, games, and other Web-based content.

Until Flash is fully phased out, Mozilla said it will continue to work with Adobe to provide the best possible Flash experience for Firefox users. This joint effort has already led to high-quality Flash playback, accelerated Flash rendering, and enhanced sandboxing. In fact, Flash will still be supported via a plugin when Mozilla drops support for NPAPI plugins in March 2017. That’s when Mozilla launches the next Firefox ESR build that will support specific plugins (Java, Silverlight, etc.) until early 2018.

Google already introduced a feature in its Chrome browser back in June 2015 pausing Flash content that’s not central to the webpage. Microsoft is introducing a similar feature in its Edge browser when its Anniversary Update rolls out to Windows 10 early next month. This feature will “intelligently” auto-pause Flash content not central to the web page, the company said. Firefox, it seems, will provide control over all Flash content next year.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Kevin Parrish
Kevin Parrish
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Kevin started taking PCs apart in the 90s when Quake was on the way and his PC lacked the required components. Since then…
This Dell gaming laptop with an RTX 3050 is discounted to $700
Dell G15 gaming laptop on a table.

You don't need to spend thousands of dollars to be able to get a decent gaming laptop, as there are budget-friendly options like the Dell G15 with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 graphics card. It's currently even cheaper at just $700, following a $200 discount on its original price of $900. We're not sure how much time is remaining on this offer though, so if you think this is the perfect gaming laptop for you, stop hesitating and proceed with the purchase immediately to make sure that you don't miss out on the savings.

Why you should buy the Dell G15 gaming laptop
The Dell G15 is highlighted in our list of the best gaming laptops as the best budget gaming laptop under $1,000, as it provides dependable performance while staying affordable for most gamers. It's equipped with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 graphics card, which is perfect for budget gaming, and pairs it with the 13th-generation Intel Core i5 processor and 8GB of RAM. These specifications are more than enough to be able to play the best PC games, though you may have to dial down the settings for the more demanding titles.

Read more
Intel’s big bet on efficient GPUs might actually work
An Intel Meteor Lake processor socketed in a motherboard.

Intel has a lot riding on its next-gen Battlemage graphics architecture, and a very early benchmark shows some promising signs for performance. An Intel Lunar Lake CPU packing a low-power integrated Battlemage GPU was reportedly spotted in the SiSoftware benchmark database. It boasts not only higher performance than Intel's Meteor Lake chips, but also much better efficiency.

User @miktdt on X (formerly Twitter) spotted the result, which appears to come from an early qualification sample of the HP Spectre x360 14. The benchmark picked up that the laptop was using a Lunar Lake CPU, which is said to come with the Xe2-LPG architecture, a lower-power version of Battlemage.

Read more
Intel Battlemage graphics cards: release date speculation, price, specs, and more
Intel Arc A770 GPU installed in a test bench.

Despite a rocky start, Intel's Arc GPUs are now among the best graphics cards you can buy. Targeting budget PC gamers, Intel has established itself as a major player in gaming graphics cards, and all eyes are on Team Blue with its next generation of GPUs, codenamed Battlemage.

We know Battlemage GPUs are coming, and Intel has slowly been dropping hints about the graphics cards over the past year. Although we're still waiting on an official release date, specs, and pricing details for Battlemage GPUs, there's a lot we can piece together already.
Intel Battlemage: specs

Read more