Google Chrome To Remove Theora Video Codec Support

The Xiph.Org-developed Theora lossy video compression format was once popular for open-source video compression but in an era of VP9 and AV1 its usage has waned. Google engineers are now working to remove Theora support from their Chrome/Chromium web browser.

Given that Theora usage isn't too popular these days and that there are emerging security risks, Google is deprecating and then removing Theora support over the next few months.

In the recently-filed feature change, Theora support is to be deprecated and then removed given the declining usage of this video compression format, zero-day attacks against media codecs continuing to increase, and it's never been supported by Safari or Chrome on Android. Due to those items, Theora support is beginning to be disabled for varying numbers of canary/beta/stable users over the coming months. By January they intend to have it disabled for 100% of users while for Chrome 123 the support will be outright removed. Chrome 123 will roll-out as stable in March with the plan of having all the Theora code removed.

"A spike in zero day attacks against media formats has caused us to reevaluate our support for legacy codecs.

The Theora video codec was first released in 2004 and had its last official release in 2011. While it was one of the first open codecs on the web, usage has now fallen below detectable levels and was never supported by Safari or Chrome for Android. Given the risks to the wider Chrome population, we'll begin to remove support in M120 and finalizing removal in M123.

Prior to usage falling below detectable levels, the sites we did manually inspect were incorrectly preferring Theora over more modern codecs like VP9."

Farewell, Theora!