No Flash Support in Internet Explorer 10 Metro

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The touch friendly, Metro-style version if IE10 will not support Flash or other plug-ins. (Image: Favbrowser.com)

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 10 will not support any browser plug-ins when running in the new slick Metro mode. Most notably, that means no Flash support and a reliance on HTML5, JavaScript, and other standards-based technologies for video and other interactivity. When running in standard desktop mode, IE10 will support both plug-ins and extensions.

Metro is the touch-friendly, full screen interface that will run on top of Windows 8 and be the main mode for touch devices such as tablets. According to Microsoft, “running Metro style IE plug-in free improves battery life as well as security, reliability, and privacy for consumers.”

This is another big blow for Flash, which is already not supported on many mobile devices including iPhones and iPads. While there are still things Flash does better (or more consistently across browsers) than HTML5 and JavaScript, developing in Flash is making less and less business sense as mobile web usage continues to explode.

Source: Metro style browsing and plug-in free HTML5

YouTube Mobile Redesigned, Now Using HTML5 for Video

YouTube has updated the mobile version of their site with several important improvements, including now serving videos using the HTML5 video tag. If you’re using an HTML5 compliant mobile browser, which includes the iPhone and Android phones, you’ll get the new and improved site. If you hit m.youtube.com with an older phone (or a desktop web browser) you’ll get the older, more basic version instead.

The redesigned mobile site features touch-friendly interface changes, speed improvements, and much higher quality video than the previous Edge-optimized version. The original mobile site launched in 2007 and the native iPhone YouTube app has hardly been updated since the first iPhone was released, so many of the changes revolve around getting the mobile site on the same page as changes to the full version of the site. Most importantly, users can now choose to watch the high quality versions of videos when available.

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