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

Posted by EditorDavid on from the goodbye-to-an-API dept.

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.

15 of 163 comments (clear)

  1. Mozilla...getting it wrong so you don't have to. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "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.

  2. Re:Context please by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    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?

    There is no talk of removing support for extensions. This is only about plugins.

  3. Fuck you, Mozilla. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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...?

    1. Re:Fuck you, Mozilla. by TheRaven64 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  4. Flash by dschiptsov · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  5. Re:Context please by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    actually there is (more than) talk to remove extensions, well replace them with a new standard
    coming in ff 57
    it'll break a lot of nice extensions
    http://www.ghacks.net/2017/01/28/firefox-add-on-quicksaver-quits/

  6. No real benefits (only perceived ones) by admin7087 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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".

  7. To much IT hardware needs java for management by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 4, Informative

    To much IT hardware needs java for management. LIke switch admin, IPMI's, others.

    1. Re:To much IT hardware needs java for management by myowntrueself · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

      --
      In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
    2. Re:To much IT hardware needs java for management by myowntrueself · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

      --
      In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
  8. "This add-on will stop working..." by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 5, Informative
    Posting this again: The reason I like Firefox is the add-ons.
    1. Classic Theme Restorer

      "This add-on will stop working when Firefox 57 arrives in November 2017."
      This add-on will stop working when Firefox 57 arrives in November 2017 and Mozilla drops support for XUL / XPCOM / legacy add-ons. It should still work on Firefox 52 ESR until ESR moves to Firefox 59 ESR in 2018 (~Q2).

      There is no "please port it" or "please add support for it" this time, because the entire add-on eco system changes and the technology behind this kind of add-on gets dropped without replacement.

    2. Cookies Manager+
    3. Ghostery DON'T UPDATE. New versions don't allow sufficient user control.
      USE THIS: ghostery-5.4.10-sm+an+fx.xpi Link: Version 5.4.10
    4. Mozilla Archive Format
    5. NoScript
    6. Nuke Anything Enhanced
    7. Open link in...
    8. Print Edit
    9. Session Manager
    10. Snap Links Plus DON'T UPDATE. New versions don't have as many features.
      USE THIS: snap_links_plus-2.4.3-sm+fx.xpi Link: Version 2.4.3
    11. uBlock Origin
    12. Video DownloadHelper
    1. Re:"This add-on will stop working..." by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

  9. Re:Context please by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  10. If you want NPAPI, there is Pale Moon by SEE · · Score: 5, Informative

    Pale Moon is a long-established fork of Firefox that, among other things, is maintaining NPAPI support.

    1. Re:If you want NPAPI, there is Pale Moon by Luckyo · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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.