In a move that has sent shockwaves across the tech world, Google announced on Tuesday that they plan to remove support for the widely used H.264 video playback from the Chrome browser to “enable open innovation” -- while continuing to support the extremely closed Adobe Flash.

AppleInsider is reporting on the controversial move by Googe, announced Tuesday by Chrome product manager Mike Jazayeri. According to his January 11 update on The Chromium Blog, Google plans to begin “focusing our investments in those technologies that are developed and licensed based on open web principles” -- referring to WebM VP8 and Theora, the video codecs that Google acquired from On2 last year.

The move is a bit of a head scratcher, considering that Google plans to specifically eliminate support for ISO’s MPEG-4 based H.264 codec, which is widely used by a number of video-centric companies, including Apple and all of their iTunes video content. Apparently left off the chopping block is Adobe’s Flash, which is “completely proprietary to one company rather than being administered by a standards body.”

Google’s announcement was met with a great deal of scorn from users of the Chrome browser, who immediately left “overwhelmingly negative responses” on the company’s blog.

"This is an utterly stupid move driven purely by corporate competition and not consumer convenience,” wrote commenter John Federico. “Pushing WebM -- an inferior and unsupported format -- is all about an attempt to wrest control of the consumer video market from H.264 (and in many ways, Apple). H.264 is in use nearly everywhere -- including your very own YouTube, Google. If anything, it's going to make publishers even more hostile toward Google and its perceived control over their businesses.”

Of course, Chrome users will likely have the option of finding and installing the H.264 playback codec on their own, which Firefox users have become accustomed to doing. Or, as AppleInsider notes, “They may also switch to other browsers that can play H.264 video.”

The most ironic part of Google’s plan? Adobe Flash “now uses H.264 as its internal codec within the Flash wrapper, meaning Google’s push to quash H.264 can only possibly shift the world to using H.264, albeit wrapped in a Flash container that is not compatible with Apple’s iOS devices.”

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