Firefox forced to offer H.264 video codec

[viking60]

Firefox has traditionally insisted on using only royaltt free codecs like Ogg, Theora and WebM. These formats are not supported by Apples and Microsofts browsers. Mozilla will make use of the Gecko engine to exploit the H.264 video codec that is already present on the system. This can be done in a couple of weeks, and make Firefox "patent infested" but also more flexible. There is no point in blocking an existing technology from a browser user point of view - the browser that can show everything wins! This does not mean that Mozilla will stop promoting open codecs. The H.264 codec is particularly important in the smartphone market. On the lap/dektop market it is more diverse. XP cannot handle H.264 and Win7 can. Linux can handle it via GStreamer. More here...