Mozilla To Drop Support For All NPAPI Plugins In Firefox 52 Except Flash (bleepingcomputer.com)

The Netscape Plugins API is "an ancient plugins infrastructure inherited from the old Netscape browser on which Mozilla built Firefox," according to Bleeping Computer. But now an anonymous reader writes: Starting March 7, when Mozilla is scheduled to release Firefox 52, all plugins built on the old NPAPI technology will stop working in Firefox, except for Flash, which Mozilla plans to support for a few more versions. This means technologies such as Java, Silverlight, and various audio and video codecs won't work on Firefox.

These plugins once helped the web move forward, but as time advanced, the Internet's standards groups developed standalone Web APIs and alternative technologies to support most of these features without the need of special plugins. The old NPAPI plugins will continue to work in the Firefox ESR (Extended Support Release) 52, but will eventually be deprecated in ESR 53. A series of hacks are available that will allow Firefox users to continue using old NPAPI plugins past Firefox 52, by switching the update channel from Firefox Stable to Firefox ESR.

Comments

Context please

[ebonum]

I must be an idiot. I read TFA and I have no idea if AdBlock Plus, Ghostery, NoScript, etc. will continue to work.
What will break? What will continue to function normally?

Re:Context please

[Anonymous Coward]

And the day they follow through on it, is the day they for real die, despite all the propaganda floating around already about how "buggy" and "leaky" and "useless" it is. I've never had any such problems with Mozilla, but the day they kill ublock, noscript and other such necessary add-ons, and replace them with substandard, neutered google-crap, is the day not only I have absolutely no further use for them, it's the day they have actually lost the entire point of their existence.

Mozilla...getting it wrong so you don't have to.

[Anonymous Coward]

"We have announced today that we will be dropping support for all plugins, except the one that's really the problem judging by the security advisories. You can expect your specialty software to stop working immediately, while the security-hazard that is Flash will continue to work for several, pointless version number bumps."

If it weren't for mistakes the Mozilla Foundation wouldn't be good at making any fucking thing.

Fuck you, Mozilla.

[Anonymous Coward]

Blocking NPAPI, *execpt* the worst of them all, security ala mozilla, like we know it for years. Running out of ways to piss off every single admin on the planet, are we...?

Re:Fuck you, Mozilla.

[TheRaven64]

I don't know - between Java and Flash, it's hard to tell which has the worse security record. Though these days about the only Java applets on the web are malware, so at least you get a lower false positive rate by blocking them all.

Flash

[dschiptsov]

Which is the absolute champion in vulnerabilities exploited by hackers, tracking, malware and every possible kind of crap, including banners, which is the only reason it is still exist and pushed by the browser vendors.

No real benefits (only perceived ones)

[admin7087]

There really is no benefit in replacing native plugins with a strictly inferior technology - Javascript instead of the language of your choice and then removing the former. This is just another closing down of an ecosystem for the sake of nonexistent "security" under the obviously dubious presumptions that the developers of the base technology are more competent about security than plugin developers and that users need to be constantly patronized. Instead, they should open a native plugin technology to as many languages as possible and let people decide what language to use and which developer to trust.

But you can see this trend everywhere. Less power to users and third-party developers and more control to the people who run the "platform".

Re:To much IT hardware needs java for management

[myowntrueself]

And they should have moved to javascript a long time ago, requiring people to install modern browsers instead of continuing to use internet explorer 6 and microsoft XP without any service packs.

Still, you can just back up Firefox 51 and put it to a live linux cd of some sort, then making it access the hardware you need via a VM.

Yeah the vendors should have released firmware patches or hardware modules to deal with the changes to browsers. Never going to happen. People with very sensitive jobs are going to keep using crappy unsecurable browsers because they no longer have any choice.

Re:"This add-on will stop working..."

[Anonymous Coward]

when they kill the unique-to-firefox flexibility of addons, it WILL KILL FIREFOX itself. rip. it was a good run but your days are now numbered unless the morons-in-charge over there get their shit together.

Re:To much IT hardware needs java for management

[myowntrueself]

The plugins were totally unsecurable already. Just use that browser for accessing those devices only, without internet access.

'Without internet access' isn't going to work when you are accessing KVM consoles on servers on the other side of the world which are at a hosting company where you don't have the option of a VPN. There are many thousands such sites perhaps millions. I deal with about a hundred personally.

Out in the real world people do need java, and often flash as well, in a browser, to be able to do their jobs. You can't just say "Well I'm not going to do my job if you don't upgrade the systems so I don't need java" because they'll just fire you and hire someone who will. Obviously.