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Google Earth API Will Be Retired On December 12, 2015
An anonymous reader writes Google [on Friday] announced it plans to retire the Google Earth API on December 12, 2015. The reason is simple: Both Chrome and Firefox are removing support for Netscape Plugin Application Programming Interface (NPAPI) plugins due to security reasons, so the API's death was inevitable. The timing makes sense. Last month, Google updated its plan for killing off NPAPI support in Chrome, saying that it would block all plugins by default in January and drop support completely in September. The company also revealed that the Google Earth plugin had dropped in usage from 9.1 percent of Chrome users in October 2013 to 0.1 percent in October 2014. Add dwindling cross-platform support (particularly on mobile devices), and we're frankly surprised the announcement didn't come sooner.
Not that I'm complaining, but you really do need to pay attention to Google's plans if you have any applications that make use of their APIs. They do love to cast things adrift on a pretty regular basis. Maybe I don't do enough development to pay the proper attention, but does Google have a single source for announcements like this? Perhaps an RSS feed would work, then I could use Google Reader to keep an eye on things. Oh, right.
My UID is prime!
Don't blame Mozilla for this. Google is intentionally keeping PPAPI exclusive to Chrome.
The API is not documented or standardized. A lot of parts of it are explicitly secret (only Google and select partners like Adobe know about them). The only standard is "it should do whatever it does in Chrome," and Google designs it around Chrome without any concern for accommodating other browsers. So even if Mozilla poured energy into reverse engineering it and implementing what would necessarily be a slower, less complete shadow of the Chrome version, Google could (and would) still pull the rug out from under you by changing the API next month. It's just not an option.
Google is being incredibly petty and anti-cooperative with this stuff and people act like they're Goddamn pioneers. It's the same shit you see with Android/Google Play, or with Mir in Ubuntu--they call it "open" but it's not open enough for anyone else to actually use.