Via Tomsguide.com - Mozilla said on Thursday that Firefox 17 for Android now supports HTML5-based H.264 video playback. Prior to this release, web developers have relied on Adobe Flash to bring H.264 content to compatible smartphones and tablets. But with Flash no longer receiving support from Adobe for the Android platform, another content delivery solution was needed.
Earlier this year, Mozilla wanted to only support open-source, patent-free video codecs in its browser, and pushed really hard to make that happen. But the majority of the web didn't buy it, and now relies on the license-heavy H.264 codec. Mozilla finally decided to fully support H.264 in Firefox once the studio realized Google wasn't going to drop support in Chrome and stick to using its own HTML5 video codec, WebM, as originally promised.
Although Mozilla reportedly has the money to pay for H.264 licensing, the company has chosen to allow the browser to access the codec from the desktop operating system rather than bake it straight into the browser itself. Most Android devices support H.264 decoding on a hardware level, making it even easier Mozilla to flip the switch on in Firefox for Android and use the system's "Stagefright" library.
According to Mozilla, Firefox currently supports H.264 playback on any device running Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) and any Samsung device running Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich). Now Android users can play H.264 video without the now-unsupported Adobe Flash. [IS]
