Facebook has stopped using Adobe’s Flash technology for all its video content, switching over to HTML5 instead.
HTML5 is now being used for all Facebook web video surfaces, including videos in News Feed, on Pages, and in the Facebook embedded video player.
Games on Facebook will continue to use Flash, the company said, adding that it will work with Adobe to ensure that Flash-based games remain “reliable and secure.”
All videos on Facebook now use HTML5 technology instead of Flash.
According to the tech giant, the switch over to HTML 5 allows it to “continue to innovate quickly and at scale, given Facebook’s large size and complex needs.”
HTML5 made it possible for the company to build a player that is “fully accessible to screen readers and keyboard input.”
Daniel Baulig, Front End Engineer at Facebook, said: “We can leverage the accessibility tools that HTML5 provides to make it easier for people with visual impairments to use our products. Making Facebook accessible to everyone is an important part of our mission to make the world more open and connected.”
The switch to HTML5 also means means that videos on the social media platform start playing faster.
“Not only did launching the HTML5 video player make development easier, but it also improved the video experience for people on Facebook. Videos now start playing faster. People like, comment, and share more on videos after the switch, and users have been reporting fewer bugs. People appear to be spending more time with video because of it.”
Facebook isn’t the only website to move away from Flash. Many other major tech firms have switched from Flash to HTML5 over security concerns and performance issues.
YouTube, the world’s biggest video website, made the switch to HTML5 earlier this year and the BBC recently launched a version of its iPlayer app that runs on HTML5.
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