Microsoft just added H.264 codec support to Google Chrome by releasing the Windows Media Player plugin for Google Chrome. Microsoft and Google have been fighting over search results and now video codec for browsers.

At Google I/O a new competitor to H.264 has been announced. Opera, Mozilla and Google’s browsers will support WebM for HTML5 video, leaving Apple and Microsoft to support H.264

According to a recent study by video search site MeFeedia, there has been a 160% increase in the usage of H.264 videos over the Internet in the last few months, starting January this year.

Ubuntu went out of its way to license H.264 and discarded Theora in the process. This made Canonical the only company dealing in Linux to license H.264 video.