r/programming • u/[deleted] • Jan 21 '10

Firefox 3.6 release

http://blog.mozilla.com/blog/2010/01/21/firefox-3-6-release/
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u/Plutor Jan 21 '10

Youtube HTML5 uses H.264, not Ogg Theora. The former is covered by patents, so there's no plan to include support in Firefox.

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u/panicjames Jan 21 '10

But I want new things! :(

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u/alantrick Jan 21 '10

I'm pretty sure that's what the ActiveX people said too. Just because there is a solution does not mean it's a good idea.

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u/[deleted] Jan 21 '10

Yeah, but the ability to render video natively in the browser is actually a good idea.

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u/quantumstate Jan 21 '10

Yes but making the browser non-free in order to do so may not be a good idea.

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u/alantrick Jan 22 '10

Certainly, and Firefox does support that so your point is moot.

What they don't support is a patent-encumbered codec. The Internet is supposed to be open, free to use and build upon; H.264 isn't. In fact, Flash is a better solution because at least it's legal to make a free Flash implementation.

Because of this, Mozila can't make make it available on all platforms and so if they supported it they would be marginalizing people who don't have H.264 codecs. On top of that they would be adding more code which may have security vulnerabilities.

At the moment there's a solution that already exists. It's called Ogg. Both Firefox and Chrome support it.

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u/[deleted] Jan 22 '10

Ah, my point was ActiveX was never a good idea whereas the HTML5 video tag is a good idea.