Microsoft releases Google Chrome extension to enable H.264 HTML5 video

Google has already announced that it would be dropping H.264 support from Chrome, but some other key players in the browser arena aren't backing down. Microsoft, of course, is standing behind MPEG-LA's codec -- and now it's making sure that Chrome users will still be able to view HTML5 video embeds which are encoded with it. The magic will be handled by a new browser add-on called Windows Media Player Extension for HTML5. No, it's not a full-on plug-in -- which is kind of what we were expecting, given Microsoft's affinity for NPAPI tomfoolery.

To add the extension to your Google Chrome install, just visit Microsoft's download page and agree to the alert you see above.

Tags: add-on, apps, browsers, chrome, extension, google, google chrome, google+chrome+extensions, GoogleChrome, googlechromeextensions, h.264, h264, html5, html5 video, html5video, microsoft, video