From C/Net News

Apple might be taking a principled stand against Adobe Systems' Flash Player plug-in, but Google opted for pragmatism by choosing to build the plug-in into its Chrome browser.

Google announced its Flash embrace Tuesday on its Chromium blog, but the company has been agitating for months on a related project to improve the security of browser plug-ins. Google wants the Web to be the foundation for applications, but it doesn't want the security and crash problems plug-ins can bring.

Specifically, Google said it will distribute Flash with Chrome, update it automatically, and eventually put Flash in Chrome's sandbox where its risks can be contained better.

The move isn't entirely a surprise. First, it had been reported Monday by ZDNet's Larry Dignan. But even last July, Google revealed that Adobe is one of Google's partners for Chrome OS, the browser-based operating system the company plans to release later this year. That virtually guaranteed Flash a place in Chrome OS.

What the move does indicate is that the separation between Flash and new features coming to HTML and related Web standards isn't quite as black and white as some would suppose. It's true that HTML, CSS, and JavaScript pose a competitive threat to Flash, but it's also true that there is a huge quantity of Flash content available on the Web. And note also that Adobe is adopting next-generation Web standards, too.    [More....] [Comments...]