That’s a real news. But not a surprise. Google Chrome is not the first browser to block Flash. Opera is another one from the known ones to block Adobe Flash creations. Lesser known browsers such as Konqueror and K-Meleon did the same thing, by default or giving their users the option to choose whether they want to allow it or not. Let’s not say about Mozilla Firefox with the users given the opportunity to block it by the click to play plugins feature. Google Chrome is from another galaxy as it is a major one, in fact the most used, according to a study made by StatCounter which revealed Chrome was the leading desktop browser as of June 2015.
A big hit for Flash, indeed. This piece of software was for about 15 years the perfect solution for media-rich experience on the Internet. Being developed by Adobe, the well known American computer software. A perfect solution for web designers and developers to create a movie-like experience on tens of thousands of websites, including major companies. Soon after the advertisers discovered the opportunity of preseting rich-media ads to Internet users, leading to Flash becoming the medium of choice for the online advertisers. In fact there was a moment 90% of all media-rich advertising was created using Adobe Flash.
Not a bad thing for advertisers as they intended to enhance the user experience. Quite a bad thing for users who soon started perceiving it as annoying, especially because of the fact Flash advertising was pushed on people so hard. Plus, ads made in Flash became bigger in file sizes, taking up a large amount of bandwidth to download and slowing page loading. Technical aspects overcame by the high increase of the Internet speed, apparently not enough to avoid the decisions from the browser developers to start blocking Flash.
On the other hand blocking Flash was a natural step and a side effect of blocking all advertising, regardless of format. Adobe and the Irish online agency PageFair made a study revealing the website owners are losing $22 billion in advertising revenue because of the ad blocking software, affecting the advertising and the publishing industry.