HTML5 Player (00000003)
Amazon Video’s new HTML5 web video player.

Amazon is becoming the latest company to start moving beyond Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight to adopt native HTML5 web video.

The company said today that it has begun to roll out a new HTML5 web player for Amazon Video in the U.S., UK, Germany, Austria and Japan for Chrome, Internet Explorer on Windows 8.1, and Microsoft’s new Edge browser on Windows 10. The company says the web player will bring improved performance compared to Silverlight or Flash, with an interface that’s designed to look similar to the company’s Fire TV video player.

Amazon-owned Twitch recently made a similar move. Google’s YouTube made the shift to native HTML5 by default earlier this year.

The new Amazon Video player supports video up to 1080p HD, along with features including preview images for fast navigation. It also supports Linux and Chrome OS, and includes the ASAP feature for instant playback.

Update: The current rollout is focused on Windows machines.

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