Google to Drop Ogg Theora from Chrome Browser
canopic jug writes:
Google has rolled out plans to drop the Ogg Theora video codec from its Chrome web browser starting M123. The removal of that open standard for video will trickle down through Chromium and its derivatives.
Chrome will deprecate and remove support for the Theora video codec in desktop Chrome due to emerging security risks. Theora's low (and now often incorrect) usage no longer justifies support for most users.
Notes:
- Zero day attacks against media codecs have spiked.
- Usage has fallen below measurable levels in UKM.
- The sites we manually inspected before levels dropped off were incorrectly preferring Theora over more modern codecs like VP9.
- It's never been supported by Safari or Chrome on Android.
- An ogv.js polyfill exists for the sites that still need Theora support.
- We are not removing support for ogg containers.Our plan is to begin escalating experiments turning down Theora support in M120. During this time users can reactivate Theora support via chrome://flags/#theora-video-codec if needed.
The tentative timeline for this is (assuming everything goes smoothly):
- ~Oct 23, 2023: begin 50/50 canary dev experiments.
- ~Nov 1-6, 2023: begin 50/50 beta experiments.
- ~Dec 6, 2023: begin 1% stable experiments.
- ~Jan 8, 2024: begin 50% stable experiments.
- ~Jan 16th, 2024: launch at 100%.
- ~Feb 2024: remove code and chrome://flag in M123.
- ~Mar 2024: Chrome 123 will roll to stable.
Google is going with unstable and insecure WebP. In contrast, Ogg Theora is both patent-free and mature. The last CVE for Theora was in 2011. Any word as to which patents affect WebP?
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