The tech world has been trying to get rid of Flash for years, but its only with the rapidly increasing threat of hackers and more viable alternatives that companies are actually starting to move away from Flash. Not only are Google and Mozilla blocking Flash by default in their web browsers, Twitch has started the process of transitioning to HTML5 and Javascript and ditching Flash-based video players entirely.
Twitch is currently working on ditching all of their Flash for HTML5 and Javascript which will make their video player and website load faster as well as much more mobile friendly. The main goal is to remove all of the Flash elements over the next little while and they already have started replacing items as of today. One of the side effects of being 100% HTML5 and Javascript is being mobile friendly, so while you may not have the Twitch App installed, viewing on your mobile browser will be a lot easier and less resource hungry. At least that is the plan. So far Twitch chat and part of the video player has already been converted to HTML5. Right now the video player controls have been changed to HTML5, but the video player in its entirely will be replaced shortly. This will also translate over to the embedded player eventually as well. This is good for us as it will be easier to watch embedded streams within our articles, regardless if its our channel or someone else we are embedding. The roll-out is slow though, with currently 2% of the streamers getting the new controls, currently available on channel pages. Over the next few days we should see the new controls spread to all players and users. Then it is on to the next step in replacing Flash, the stream itself.
