Microsoft Releases Firefox Plugin For H264 Support
Written by Alan Thursday, 16 December 2010 06:00
Did you ever think the day would come when Microsoft would be releasing Firefox plugins? Well, the day HAS come and here’s how it came about. Microsoft is supporting HTML5 by using the H264 codec for video (as Apple is doing). Firefox is supporting HTML5 with video support from WebM. Since Firefox runs on Windows and lot of Windows users have made it their browser of choice it has left Microsoft with a conundrum.
This lead to Microsoft to writing and releasing an HTML5 Extension for Windows Media Player Firefox Plug-in. The add-on calls on the build-in Windows 7 support for H264 to play those encoded videos in HTML5.
Of course the reason Microsoft had to this and that Mozilla didn’t do it was a simple one – money. Microsoft can afford to cover the hefty licensing fess that are required for HTML5, while Firefox can’t. And with a lot of Windows users opting for the Firefox browser Microsoft was somewhat obligated to support them. Still, it’s good to see them do the right thing and come through for their users.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Microsoft, Alan Buckingham. Alan Buckingham said: Microsoft Releases Firefox Plugin For H264 Support http://goo.gl/fb/e56Uu [...]
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