When video.js was first released all the way back in 2010, Flash was the only way to play video in Firefox, IE, and the Android browser. And when you could use HTML video, it was really complicated to get right and broken in all sorts of scenarios (live streaming, anyone?). Those problems were a big part of why we wrote video.js in the first place. The HTML standard provided a simple, powerful, and universal API for video: why use anything else?
The superiority of HTML video is pretty well established these days and browser support for video reflects that. If you have your videos in MP4 format, video.js will play them natively in HTML on every modern desktop and mobile browser out there. In video.js 5.0, we started the process of deprecating the last holdout in our supported browsers: the dreaded Internet Explorer 8. If you’re saying to yourself “Wha?! You still support IE8??”, I share your shock and horror. It’s no fun but we’ve been holding out for the couple folks who want to use video on their sites and still have to support ancient clients. There’s a couple more hoops to jump through however, and you should start emotionally preparing yourself for the end of IE8 support if you’re one of the people using it. With IE8 heading out to pasture, including a Flash fallback by default in video.js is starting to look a little silly.
So here’s what we’re thinking: move Flash support out of the core of video.js and into our legacy-compatiblity shim around the time Chrome begins deprecating Flash this December. We’ll keep it around for awhile to support some more complex usage (say, live streaming in IE10) but the heart of video.js will go from “HTML-first” to “HTML-only.” That should mean more focus from the core committers on some amazing new stuff like improving our plugin framework, enhancing our support for HLS and DASH, and making advanced features like ads easier to integrate and better for viewers.
How does that sound? Let us know in this issue, ping @videojs on Twitter, or come say “hi” in our Slack channel.