Microsoft Edge adds more options to control Flash content for a better browsing experience

Microsoft Edge is introducing new features that gives users more control on how to handle Flash content. Microsoft is now further encouraging the transition to a completely HTML5-based web experience. For those sites that support HTML5 only versions, the Edge browser will now default to the HTML5 version. This means that the Flash content of a site will not even be loaded by the browser, thereby improving the performance. [caption id=“attachment_353165” align=“aligncenter” width=“640”] What now happens on Edge if you go to a site that depends on Flash. Image: Microsoft.[/caption] For sites that do run Flash content, Edge will prompt users with a choice. They can either choose to run the Flash content or not. The choice will be remembered for subsequent visits to the same website. Microsoft will allow Flash content to run on some of the most popular sites that still use Flash. Microsoft has not publicly disclosed a list of these sites. The number of popular sites still allowed to run Flash content automatically will be reduced over time. Microsoft hopes that at the end of the process, there will be fewer popular sites depending on Flash based content. The update will be available to Windows Insider users immediately, and will roll out publicly with the Windows 10 Creator’s update in 2017. Microsoft is also encouraging developers to adopt the HTML5 standard, and has indicated that similar updates are coming for Chrome, Safari and Firefox. After the Windows 10 Anniversary update, Edge had started to autopause Flash content . Safari has implemented a feature that disables Flash by default. When users navigate to a site with Flash content, Safari prompts the user to activate Flash for that website , for that session, or permanently. Mozilla has gone ahead and blocked Flash till Adobe fixes all the vulnerabilities. Google prioritises HTML5 content over Flash content whenever possible.