Talk about a slow painful death! The Adobe Flash web video platform has been in God’s waiting room since Steve Jobs vowed the iPhone would never support it back in 2008.
Somehow the format has endured like a horror movie villain, slowing down our computers and providing annoying ads for more than a decade since Jobs’ dropped the death sentence.
Flash-forward (no pun intended) to July 2019 and Google’s latest efforts to rid the world of the web’s pioneering video format.
In version 76 of the Chrome browser for Mac and PC, Google has taken the individual blocking of Flash items to the next level. Chrome 76 automatically blocks Flash in the browser by default. Bam!
Related: How to unblock Adobe Flash Player
Users can still tweak it in the settings to revert back to the “Ask First” option that will enable some Flash content to run with permission. However, if you leave the setting as it is, you’ll never see the dreaded Flash content running in your Chrome browser again.
Beyond dropping the axe on Flash, Google is also bringing another intriguing feature to Chrome 76. Earlier this month we brought word of Google’s displeasure with sites attempting to spy on users browsing in Incognito Mode by exploiting a loophole within the browser.
Related: Best VPN 2019
Some sites used a “detect private mode” script in order to circumvent web users’ efforts to bypass the number of free articles they’re allowed to read before a paywall pop-up kicks in. When discovering readers are using Incognito Mode, offending sites have been throwing up the paywall automatically. Google said exploiting the loophole was against the spirit of private browsing and promised to curtail the practice.
In a tweet on Tuesday, Chrome developer Paul Irish revealed Google has followed through on the pledge.
Chrome Incognito mode has been detectable for years, due to the FileSystem API implementation. As of Chrome 76, this is fixed.
Apologies to the "detect private mode" scripts out there. ? pic.twitter.com/3LWFXQyy7w— Paul Irish (@paul_irish) June 11, 2019
Another neat developer-centric feature enables web masters to program the side to show the dark mode introduced in earlier versions. You can read all about the other changes in the Chromium blog post.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.