Google to discontinue Chrome support of H.264 video codec

Google to discontinue Chrome support of H.264 video codec

Google has cited its goal to support open initiatives as the reason to boot out H.264 video codec support from Chrome browser, the company said in a blog post on its Chromium Project website. Despite H.264 video codec's immense popularity, and support in Microsoft IE9 and Apple Safari browser, Google will stop supporting H.264 in the upcoming Chrome browser builds, choosing WebM (VP8) and Theora video codecs instead.

With the discontinued support for H.264 video codec, Google is realigning the Chrome browser's HTML5 video support with the codecs that are supported under the Chromium Project -- which is what the Google Chrome browser is based on.

Google commented further on discontinuing H.264 video codec on Chrome, "These changes will occur in the next couple months but we are announcing them now to give content publishers and developers using HTML