They used to have playback via gstreamer (and before that mplayer plugin). First they castrated it for political reasons (you could only use certain codecs, off

They used to have playback via gstreamer (and before that mplayer plugin). First they castrated it for political reasons (you could only use certain codecs, officially so that codecs wouldn't proliferate and website authors wouldn't start to depend on them) and then they removed it altogether. Now it uses a bundled ffmpeg. I think this switch is one reason it took so long. Maybe a controversial opinion, but I think a browser should not be in the business of delivering video codecs. The operating system (distribution) should have one set of codecs that is tested, optimized, and accelerated, and all apps should be able to use them.