---
title: Google is dropping h.264 from Chrome
description: Google announces it will remove H.264 support from Chrome to back open-source video formats, making Chrome the first browser to drop the proprietary codec despite it being widely supported across Apple and Microsoft platforms.
canonical: https://videojs.org/blog/google-is-dropping-h-264-from-chrome
tags:
  - news
  - stats
authors: [steve-heffernan]
---


UPDATE: Added a chart that shows what format support will look like without Chrome supporting h.264.

![Google Chrome Drops h.264 Support](../../assets/blog/2011-01-11-google-is-dropping-h-264-from-chrome/google-chrome-drops-h264.png)

Google has decided to support the open source community by dropping h.264 support from Chrome. Previously Chrome was the only browser that could play all 3 major HTML5 formats—MP4/h.264, WebM/VP8, and Ogg/Theora. This is probably a strategic move at the same time, since h.264 seems unlikely to be beaten at this point, especially with IE9 supporting h.264 while requiring an extra plugin to use VP8\. In my opinion, there&rsquo;s two major events that could end the format war.

1.  Apple adopts WebM/VP8 (which would require adequate hardware to include in iOS devices)

2.  MPEG LA removes all royalties from h.264

[Read the original post](http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/html-video-codec-support-in-chrome.html).
