Microsoft says websites rely less and less on Flash and other plug-ins

On the evening of February 2, Beijing time, in response to the decision that IE 10 does not support plug-ins in the Windows 8 Metro environment, Microsoft said in its official blog that this can improve battery life, security, reliability and user privacy.

Microsoft announced last September that the Metro version of Internet Explorer 10 for Windows 8 will no longer support plug-ins. However, Microsoft has provided a solution that allows websites relying on plug-ins to go back to the traditional Windows desktop environment to continue running Flash and other plug-ins, beyond the shielding of Metro.

With the maturity of standards based Web technology, the importance of plug-ins has declined. Although the local Web technology can not fully support plug-in functions, the open Web has its advantages everywhere.

At present, more and more mobile devices and computing environments support modern Web standards. The popularity of these platforms and devices has made it impossible for plug-in manufacturers to enter every screen smoothly.

With the launch of Windows 8 and IE 10, local Web standards will further suppress proprietary plug-ins. As mentioned above, Microsoft's next-generation browser will no longer display plug-ins in Metro environment, and Metro is the default desktop of Windows 8.

Microsoft has published blog posts many times to discuss the potential impact of this change and what it means to users and Web developers. In a blog published this week, John Hrvatin, the IT program manager, emphasized the advantages of this transformation.

Hewating said: "The shift to the plugless Web is taking place today. Any website using plug-ins should understand the user experience of plugless browsing. At present, a large number of Web browsing occurs on devices that do not support plug-ins. The reason why the Metro version of IE does not support plug-ins is to improve battery life, security, reliability and user privacy."

At present, many users use devices that do not support plug-ins such as iPhone or iPad to access the Internet. Therefore, more and more websites that rely on plug-ins also begin to provide corresponding solutions for these users. Microsoft has discussed similar issues before.

Perhaps a large number of websites that rely heavily on Flash will continue to exist, but they can no longer cater to users who use devices that do not support plug-ins. Hewating said in his blog that such a website can pop up a dialog box and request users to return to the traditional Windows desktop environment and start the desktop version of IE.

Microsoft said that to pop up the request dialog box, Web developers can specify ActiveX=true in the X-UA compatible meta tag or HTTP header. However, Hewatin pointed out that this is the best solution, and the best solution is to show the plug-in free site to Metro users.