Google builds Adobe's Flash into Chrome

Google and Adobe have announced that they are to collaborate on development of the Adobe's Flash plug-in. As a first step, Google's Chrome web browser is to have Adobe's Flash built in. Google have updated the Chrome developer channel with a new version which includes the integrated Flash Player and a basic plug-in manager. Google will also work with Adobe to enhance Chrome's sandbox technology to include plug-ins like Flash Player.

Currently, in the development version, the bundled Flash Player is disabled by default and users will need to add "--enable-internal-flash" to Chrome's start up to enable it. In the future, updates to the bundled Flash Player will be handled by Chrome's auto-update feature. There are a number of issues with the first release, such as a clash with installed version of Flash Player on Windows, plug-in enabling only taking effect after a restart and a lack of a bundled 64-bit Flash Player for Linux. According to TechCrunch, Google are also planning to to bring the integrated Flash Player capabilities to Chrome OS.

Google are also working with Mozilla, Adobe and "the broader community" to define the next generation of plug-in APIs to address shortcomings in how plug-ins work with browsers. Linus Upson, VP of Engineering at Google said "Improving the traditional browser plug-in model will make it possible for plug-ins to be just as fast, stable and secure as the browser's HTML and JavaScript engines".

See also:

• Google adds Geolocation API to Chrome Dev channel, a report from The H.

(djwm)