On January 11, 2011, Google announced that it would remove H.264 playback in its Chrome web browser. In its Chrome Official blog, the search engine giant said that it would gradually remove H.264 in the next few months. It would inform its content publishers and developers, who are using HTML
Google said that it is removing H.264 support for it is a closed system and Google is devoted to develop an “open and community-driven” web. Google will continue to support open codec technologies. From now on, Google will support only two formats- WebM codec and Theora.
The WebM project was launched in 2010 which is a free “web video standard.” The WebM technology had been actually developed by a company called On2. Google acquired On2 and opened up its VP8 codec. On the contrary, the H.264 technology is patented and adopters are required to pay royalties to MPEG-LA, a licensing consortium.
After the announcement, a heated debate started all over the web. Many are supporting Google while others are opposing its decision saying that it would only hamper the progress of the web for the WebM technology is not widespread like H.264.
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