Facebook announced its intentions to do away with Flash player technology in an official statement released on its blog on Dec. 18. "Using web technologies allows us to tap into the excellent tooling that exists in browsers, among the open source community, and at Facebook in general," said front-end developer Daniel Baulig in the release. "Not having to recompile code and being able to apply changes directly in the browser allow us to move fast."
Facebook also noted its "excellent testing infrastructure," as well of the usefulness of tools like Jest and Web and WebDriver on an HTML5-only platform.
In addition to this, HTML5 will allow accessibility to screen readers and keyboard input, as well as the ease in which implementing the platform will give better access to users who are visually impaired, and will do away with the added step of reconfiguring code.
HTML5 will also boost the site's overall security, making it harder for hackers and cybercriminals to use bugs to their advantage, which occurs more often with Flash.
"Not only did launching the HTML5 video player make development easier, but it also improved the video experience for people on Facebook," continued Baulig. "Videos now start playing faster. People like, comment, and share more on videos after the switch, and users have been reporting fewer bugs."
Facebook isn't the first sharing platform to do away with Flash — YouTube disbanded the use of the player in January 2015. "Videos are an enriching way to connect with the world around you, and we're happy we could make the Facebook video experience better," he added.
Via: BBC
