Twitch begins shift from Flash to HTML5

July 23, 2015 | 11:08

Tags: #flash #flash-player #game-streaming #html5 #rich-media #security #streaming #video-streaming #vulnerability

Companies: #adobe #amazon #twitch

Game streaming service Twitch, now an official Amazon property, has followed in YouTube's footsteps and begun the process of migrating away from Adobe's once-ubiquitous Flash Player.

While once the king of rich-media content, Adobe's Flash has been decreasing in popularity of late thanks to a combination of improved in-browser media support and a string of serious security issues over the years culminating in three zero-day vulnerabilities becoming public knowledge following a breach on grey-hat security firm Hacking Team. Now, Twitch - purchased by Amazon for $970 million in August last year - has taken a leaf from web video giant YouTube and begun the process of shifting away from Flash to the newer HTML5 standard.

While it's progress, the process is only half-complete. 'Today’s redesign moves half of the video player – specifically the controls – from Flash to HTML5 and JavaScript,' explained Twitch's Georgia Price in a blog post detailing the update. 'The video itself is still in Flash underneath the controls. However, this is an important step to releasing the much-anticipated full HTML5 player.'

The new player will appear on channel pages initially, and will be gradually rolled out across the site 'at a steady pace,' Price explained. No date has been yet given for the migration to a pure-HTML5 video playback system.
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