Google to drop H.264 codec from Chrome

published 12 January 2011

In a bid to turn Chrome into a more accessible open source project, Google has said it would remove H.264 video support from future versions.

The company declared it would be changing Chrome's HTML5 video support to be consistent with codecs already supported by the open Chromium project.

The information was released in a post on The Chromium Blog, where Google explained it would be using WebM(VP8) and Theora codecs from now on, but added there would possibly be added support for more selected codecs in the future.

Google said: "We expect even more rapid innovation in the web media platform in the coming year and are focusing our investments in those technologies that are developed and licensed based on open web principles."

"Though H.264 plays an important role in video, as our goal is to enable open innovation, support for the codec will be removed and our resources directed towards completely open codec technologies."

Google's browser was shown to have made significant gains over the past year and now holds nearly 10 per cent market share, according to research released this month from NetMarketShare.

Get the ITPro daily newsletter