Google to Stop Running Flash Ads in January 2017 ⇥ support.google.com

Google:

Starting June 30, 2016, you’ll no longer be able to upload display ads built in Flash. And, starting in January 2017, AdWords will stop running display ads in the Flash format.

If you use Flash ads in your AdWords campaigns, there are 2 ways to switch to HTML5 ads […]

Amazon stopped accepting Flash ads last year, but they’re clearly nowhere near as significant a provider as is Google. This policy change affects both AdWords and DoubleClick.

I don’t have Flash installed on my personal computer, but I do on my office computer. A recent update introduced a resource-eating bug where loading a page in Safari with a poorly-built Flash ad (read: almost any Flash ad) would bring the browser to a halt.¹ It’s the kind of thing that would strike by surprise, though most news sites could reliably reproduce the bug due to their significant number of ad placements. This issue completely went away after I activated ClickToPlugin to block Flash in Safari.

HTML5 video ads are as annoying as Flash video ads, but at least they aren’t resource hogs. Those who champion the recent upsurge in autoplaying video with sound, though, can go straight to hell.