LONDON: The Mozilla Foundation has long played a key role in setting web standards as the maker of Firefox one of the world’s most used browsers. While an enthusiastic early supporter of HTML5 (particularly when it came to the Ogg and Webm audio codec’s), Mozilla tried to practice tolerance when it came to the internet’s once universal, but now fading proprietary rich media standard Adobe Systems Inc.’s (ADBE) Flash.
But this month Mozilla’s position on Flash has sharply shifted from tolerance to overt opposition. In an update Mozilla quietly blacklisted Flash on the Firefox browser, meaning that by default the rich media platform will be disabled. The change still allows users to manually enable the Flash plugin and Flash content, if they desire to do so. However, the shift sends a clear message that Firefox views Flash as essentially an unneeded technology in most of today’s HTML5-capable internet. Likewise it speaks to the long-standing frustrations regarding the poor security record of Flash that’s led Apple, Inc. (AAPL), Google, Inc. (GOOG), and others to purge it from their platforms.
Likewise, Facebook Inc.’s (FB) new security Chief Security Officer (CSO) Alex Stamos is getting more vocal about his company’s views on Flash. Since assume his role in June 2015, he’s boldly demanded on Twitter Inc. (TWTR) (@alexstamos) that Adobe set an end of life date for Flash.
