I'm the de facto tech support person in my family. This means every trip to a relative's house I'm asked (among other things) whether or not to update Adobe Flash. Well, we're one step closer to sidestepping that question entirely: YouTube announced this week that it's eschewing Flash to stream HTML5 video by default.

YouTube has used HTML5 video for years but limited it to mobile platforms that don't support Flash, such as iOS, or to desktop browsers that tech-savvy users configured to demand it. Yet Google, which owns YouTube, has recently worked in features like Adaptive Bitrate (ABR)--a technology that lets video change quality on the fly, based on the strength of your internet connection (and banishes the bothersome "buffering" notice we all hate)--to prepare HTML5-powered YouTube video for primetime. Now users of recent versions of Chrome, Internet Explorer, Safari, and Firefox will start receiving HTML5 video from YouTube by default.