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Google Chrome Will Block All NPAPI Plugins By Default In January
An anonymous reader writes Google today provided an update on its plan to remove Netscape Plugin Application Programming Interface (NPAPI) from Chrome, which the company says will improve the browser's security, speed, and stability, as well as reduce complexity in the code base. In short, the latest timeline is as follows: Block all plugins by default in January 2015, disable support in April 2015, and remove support completely in September 2015. For context, Google first announced in September 2013 that it was planning to drop NPAPI. At the time, Google said anonymous Chrome usage data showed just six NPAPI plugins were used by more than 5 percent of users, and the company was hoping to remove support from Chrome "before the end of 2014, but the exact timing will depend on usage and user feedback."
If I knew which 6 NPAPI plugins were used I'd know if I cared or not.
So, which plugins does this really affect?
An honest question, why use Chrome when you can also use Chromium and not be 'the product'?
I'll stick with Firefox.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
What's amazing is that this 1996-era hack for extending the functionality of the Netscape browser, in a rather kludgy and unsafe way, still exists at all in 2014. I took a class at the Netscape office in Mountain View in 1997 to learn how to write NPAPI plugins and thought then that it was an ugly hack that deserved to go way soon, though I was glad it existed to solve my immediate problems. Not only did it not go away (though MS removed NPAPI support for IE a long time ago), nearly all major browsers today still support it.
Good for Google for deprecating this crap. Firefox (which is to some degree a descendant of Netscape) has also been reducing its support, per the WP article.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Chrome 64bit didn't support NPAPI and so WebEx didn't work for me, but in last couple weeks they recently completely redid WebEx plugin and now it works. I assume they now have a non-NPAPI dependant plugin. I may be mistaken though.
I know NPAPI wasn't exactly the most elegant thing, but at least it was supported by a few major browsers. Are there any good plugin API alternatives that are cross browser? Or is everyone having to implement a version of the plugin for each browser using whatever API that browser has decided to support?
HTML5 is not capable of capturing your screen. You could write the client in HTML5, but then you wouldn't have the option for clients to occasionally share their screen.
They're ending support when it literally annoys just a handful of developers. That might optimize the benefit of dropping support. Any later and they're expending too much effort for the hold-outs. Any earlier and they're shoving too much burden on an active legacy community. They gave plenty of warning too.
I'm not some Google fan-boy. There are plenty of things they do wrong; but credit where due.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
It is funny - I have been getting more and more frustrated with Firefox. They add all sorts of crap, but do nothing to resolve longstanding problems.
NPAPI plugins (or at least Unity) already don't work on the Mac version of Chrome
CATS/Diebold '08- All your vote are belong to us!
Flash does not use that API anymore?
I remember when the problem of web video was finally solved for like a couple monthes, at least for me. WMV video plugin would reliably install and play full screen video on a modest computer. But instead, flash video replaced it and tripled the CPU requirements, and it works but this is shit.
The web would be better if we had followed the route of a NPAPI video plugin, we'd have Youtube that works on a Pentium II and 128MB RAM. Running three of them would not make a 2GHz single core computer crumble.
I believe Google dropped NPAPI support in Linux for version 35 onwards. This *immediately* broke all Java applets (as far as I know, there's no PPAPI Java plug-in), which wasn't great for sysadmins using Java VNC applets (yes, I know about noVNC, but not all Web UIs have moved to that) or F1 timing on formula1.com as a consumer example.
Google Chrome for Linux dropped support for NPAPI in version 35. This meant that if you use VMware, there's now no current browser which allows you to open VMware consoles via VMware vSphere/vCenter.
This is because of two related issues:
- vCenter needs Flash, but it has to be *recent* Flash (not 11.2 Linux Flash). Only option which provides recent Flash is Chrome;
- vCenter's 'launch console' add-in is NPAPI-based, so that won't work from Chrome version 35 onwards.
Therefore my VMware-managing setup on my Linux desktop is Google Chrome 34, pinned to prevent updating; and this is used only for local VMware management, not browsing.
I post this just for information and to rant about it yet again, but of course this is VMware's fault for relying on a deprecated architecture for plugins.
"If you think the problem is bad now, just wait until we've solved it." --- Arthur Kasspe
Just keep using vi dude, I know you can use it for email, calenders, docs, spreadsheets, ide, chat, etc...
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
slash is a free service, like he has to care or be accurate.
get a clue, expect all info to be wrong here.
You really expect corporate enterprise $600/hr quality advice from slash ? Maybe you should be the one who are more thorough in where you do your research. HA
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Cisco has more than enough software devs to remedy this in a years time.
This is a huge problem with this whole debate. People who work on certain browsers want the rest of the world to just dump 20 years of software history, significant amounts of which is still in use and doing its job just fine today, and spend what would collectively be a vast amount of time and money rewriting everything just to run on this week's trendy platform instead.
Newsflash: Professionals with jobs to do value stability and backward compatibility. They probably value their tried and tested software a lot more than a flashy port to your "living standard" platform. They certainly value tried and tested software a lot more than your latest technique for animating SVGs in demos that still doesn't scale up enough to use it in real applications without becoming unusably slow anyway.
See also: Why IE is still so dominant in business browsing, even versions from several years ago, and why neither Firefox nor Chrome got much traction in business at all until they started playing nicely with grown-up sysadmin tools.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Professionals with jobs to do value stability and backward compatibility.
It would appear that these professionals with jobs had better learn to deal with moving targets. Stability and compatibility no longer exist in the old fashioned way.
It would appear that these professionals with jobs had better learn to deal with moving targets.
Why? There is no commercial advantage in repeatedly expending resources updating your software or intranet sites just to keep pace with the whims of some browser maker.
Whatever certain browser makers would like to happen, as the likes of Windows XP, IE6, and later IE8 demonstrated very clearly, staying with software that works for an extended period is a viable and sometimes very attractive option, even if it comes with significant disadvantages in other respects. Large organisations often work with multi-year roll-out plans for new technologies that will affect many staff or critical business functions, and they aren't going to be the slightest bit impressed by a browser vendor shouting, "But we push new features every six weeks!"
Stability and compatibility no longer exist in the old fashioned way.
Sure they do. They just don't exist if you give your business to organisations like Google, and the kind of web developer that relies on bleeding edge frameworks and joining the dots has no idea how to provide them.
Of course, this is good for those of us who make a lot of money offering businesses better solutions to their real problems using tried and tested technologies. It's not as glamorous, but it sure pays well if you can help your clients get stuff done without technology issues they simply don't care about getting in the way all the time.
TL;DR: Google, Mozilla and their fans wish that professional organisations would see these new developments and choose to adopt Chrome or Firefox as a result. What really happens in many cases is that those organisations see these new developments and say "OK, we'll just stick with IE, which version do we pin at to keep everything working?" and then throw lots of money at organisations like Microsoft that understand the real world needs and provide long term support accordingly.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Maybe they should block all malware plugins too. Honestly after running a small repair shop, I could name them off right off the top of my head. Block those assholes and turn it into a marketing thing to brag about security (security for stupid, careless people at least).
Bullshit.
Google wants complete and utter control of the browser and your internet usage.
Fuck the googletron.
Can't watch Slingbox without using their plugin, which uses NPAPI. They seem unwilling to update any software...which means I'll have to boot up IE just to use Slingbox.
That is after they make me watch a 15 second advertisement to watch TV I pay for on hardware I pay for on the only valid viewing option on my PC.