A couple small but noteworthy changes happened to Google Chrome this week. Two days ago, the beta channel updated to version 5.0.375.86 -- bringing an assortment of security tweaks and bugfixes. Less than a full day later, that version moved from beta to the stable channel -- and brought one more significant change.

The internal Flash plug-in is now enabled by default in all versions of Google Chrome. It wasn't that long ago (about three months) that internal Flash was just a rumor. In mid-April, Google turned it on by default for dev channel users. After making the jump to the beta channel, the internal Flash plug-in had been disabled for a while -- presumably while some kinks were worked out -- but it could still be enabled via command-line switches.

Google doesn't take pushing features to Chrome stable lightly, so this is a pretty clear indication that the internal Flash plug-in is here to stay. Let's hope they're right about the security benefits. I'm also curious to see if anyone else starts taking a serious look at the new plug-in architecture -- one of Google's other aims was to put something together which was more secure and modern than the old NPAPI plug-in system.

Internal Flash plugin now on by default in all versions of Google Chrome originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 25 Jun 2010 08:30:00 EST.