Video streaming site YouTube has followed Netflix, Apple and Vimeo by dropping Adobe’s Flash  in favour of the HTML 5 as a default support.
Richard Leider, engineering manager at YouTube, explained the shift towards HTML 5 from Flash, saying,
“Four years ago, we wrote about YouTube’s early support for the HTML5 tag and how it performed compared to Flash. At the time, there were limitations that held it back from becoming our preferred platform for video delivery. Most critically, HTML5 lacked support for Adaptive Bitrate (ABR) that lets us show you more videos with less buffering.”
Leider went on to emphasize the technical gains HTML 5 made in the years that followed, succesfully establishing itself as the preferred choice over Flash.
“These advancements have benefitted not just YouTube’s community, but the entire industry. Other content providers like Netflix and Vimeo, as well as companies like Microsoft and Apple have embraced HTML5 and been key contributors to its success,” he added.
The present HTML 5 can adapt easily to bandwidth fluctuations and lessen buffering time by around 80 per cent during video streaming on congested networks. Being an open standard function, it will help YouTube avoid using plug-ins and share natively supported videos.
