Starting in September, Chrome will stop auto-playing Flash ads
Starting in September, Chrome will stop auto-playing Flash ads
Google has announced that, beginning September 1, Chrome will no longer auto-play Flash-based ads in the company's popular AdWords program. The post frames this as a move to improve browsing performance for users, and notes that most Flash ads are automatically converted to HTML5 already. Commenting on the news, The Register notes that the change should also offer some additional protection against malware delivered via Flash. Chrome will continue to auto-play Flash content in the main body of pages, however. The Register's story says the change is, in fact, just a modification of the default setting for plugin behavior, which already supports an option to disable plugin content not deemed "important." Mozilla, of course, blacklisted the Flash plugin in July, although that action only disabled the then-current, vulnerable release—which was subsequently updated.