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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.
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.
I imagine people would. This change basically crippled Pale Moon to the point of uselessness to people like myself who migrated to it in search of alternative to Firefox when Firefox went nuts with UI experiments and other weird BS.
That said, to me that also demonstrated full willingness on part of PM devs to remove add-on compatibility for [reasons]. Browser is a platform for add-ons, and many of them are crucial for me. That patch basically broke several add-ons that are absolute deal breakers for me. And considering the state of forums when I came to ask for support in possibly making these add-ons work, as I did after the previous patch that also broke many add-ons (but I was able to find replacements for all crucial ones then), it demonstrated to me that developers simply did not understand the same thing that Firefox developers miss. We don't come to them for the browser. We come to them for the browser that is also the add-on platform for our favourite add-ons that make everyday browsing far more comfortable, or meet specific work flow demands. As a result, removing support for some add-ons is simply unacceptable, especially when you consider that many of the more esoteric add-ons that people like are often not updated, ever. They just work. Until browser devs decide that they will break them.