Discussion:
Howto get an NPAPI plugin added to the whitelist ?
r***@gmail.com
2013-11-15 07:19:16 UTC
Permalink
source: http://blog.chromium.org/2013/09/saying-goodbye-to-our-old-friend-npapi.html

Question: How can I get the NPAPI pluging added to the whitelist ?

We feel the web is ready for this transition. NPAPI isn’t supported on mobile devices, and Mozilla plans to block NPAPI plug-ins in December 2013. Based on anonymous Chrome usage data, we estimate that only six NPAPI plug-ins were used by more than 5% of users in the last month. Still, we appreciate that it will take time to transition away from NPAPI, so we will be rolling out this change in stages.

Starting in January 2014, Chrome will block webpage-instantiated NPAPI plug-ins by default on the Stable channel. To avoid disruption to users, we will temporarily whitelist the most popular NPAPI plug-ins that are not already blocked for security reasons. These are:

Silverlight (launched by 15% of Chrome users last month)
Unity (9.1%)
Google Earth (9.1%)
Java (8.9%) *
Google Talk (8.7%)
Facebook Video (6.0%)

* Already blocked by default for security reasons.

In the short term, end users and enterprise administrators will be able to whitelist specific plug-ins. Eventually, however, NPAPI support will be completely removed from Chrome. We expect this to happen before the end of 2014, but the exact timing will depend on usage and user feedback. Note that the built-in Flash plug-in and PDF viewer will be unaffected because they don’t use NPAPI.

The Chrome Web Store will also be phasing out NPAPI support. Starting today, no new Apps or Extensions containing NPAPI-based plug-ins will be allowed in the Web Store. Developers will be able to update their existing NPAPI-based Apps and Extensions until May 2014, when they will be removed from the Web Store home page, search results, and category pages. In September 2014, all existing NPAPI-based Apps and Extensions will be unpublished. Existing installations will continue to work until Chrome fully removes support for NPAPI.
Benjamin Smedberg
2013-11-15 13:23:18 UTC
Permalink
Post by r***@gmail.com
source: http://blog.chromium.org/2013/09/saying-goodbye-to-our-old-friend-npapi.html
Question: How can I get the NPAPI pluging added to the whitelist ?
Are you asking about the Chrome whitelist or Firefox? If you're asking
about Chrome, you would need to talk to the Chrome engineering team
directly, as they probably don't monitor this list.

Mozilla's position on plugins is represented here:
https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2013/09/24/plugin-activation-in-firefox/
Plugins are considered a legacy technology, but we don't have any plans
to remove NPAPI from our desktop products in the near future.

Chrome's plan to remove NPAPI seems like unrealistic posturing to me.

At the present time, we are whitelisting Flash but no other plugins in
Firefox. We are discussing the option of whitelisting some other plugins
for a while (maybe a year) while they work on transitioning to web
technologies. Currently we don't have a decision on policy on this issue.

--BDS
o***@gmail.com
2013-11-20 13:38:43 UTC
Permalink
Good to hear that NPAPI plugins will remain possible with Firefox.

It is the only browser independent native plugin API, so Google's
strategy is moving to a closed environment.

Is it possible to add NPAPI plugins to official catalogs or the marketplace?

Does it need to be wrapped as XPI then, or is XPI legacy as well for NPAPI?

- OL
Post by Benjamin Smedberg
Post by r***@gmail.com
source: http://blog.chromium.org/2013/09/saying-goodbye-to-our-old-friend-npapi.html
Question: How can I get the NPAPI pluging added to the whitelist ?
Are you asking about the Chrome whitelist or Firefox? If you're asking
about Chrome, you would need to talk to the Chrome engineering team
directly, as they probably don't monitor this list.
https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2013/09/24/plugin-activation-in-firefox/
Plugins are considered a legacy technology, but we don't have any plans
to remove NPAPI from our desktop products in the near future.
Chrome's plan to remove NPAPI seems like unrealistic posturing to me.
At the present time, we are whitelisting Flash but no other plugins in
Firefox. We are discussing the option of whitelisting some other plugins
for a while (maybe a year) while they work on transitioning to web
technologies. Currently we don't have a decision on policy on this issue.
--BDS
o***@gmail.com
2013-11-20 13:42:38 UTC
Permalink
Forgot to ask:
is there any other non-legacy native API recommended by Mozilla?
Chrome has NaCL and PPAPI.
Post by o***@gmail.com
Good to hear that NPAPI plugins will remain possible with Firefox.
It is the only browser independent native plugin API, so Google's
strategy is moving to a closed environment.
Is it possible to add NPAPI plugins to official catalogs or the marketplace?
Does it need to be wrapped as XPI then, or is XPI legacy as well for NPAPI?
- OL
Post by Benjamin Smedberg
Post by r***@gmail.com
source: http://blog.chromium.org/2013/09/saying-goodbye-to-our-old-friend-npapi.html
Question: How can I get the NPAPI pluging added to the whitelist ?
Are you asking about the Chrome whitelist or Firefox? If you're asking
about Chrome, you would need to talk to the Chrome engineering team
directly, as they probably don't monitor this list.
https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2013/09/24/plugin-activation-in-firefox/
Plugins are considered a legacy technology, but we don't have any plans
to remove NPAPI from our desktop products in the near future.
Chrome's plan to remove NPAPI seems like unrealistic posturing to me.
At the present time, we are whitelisting Flash but no other plugins in
Firefox. We are discussing the option of whitelisting some other plugins
for a while (maybe a year) while they work on transitioning to web
technologies. Currently we don't have a decision on policy on this issue.
--BDS
Benjamin Smedberg
2013-11-20 14:08:29 UTC
Permalink
Post by o***@gmail.com
Is it possible to add NPAPI plugins to official catalogs or the marketplace?
What catalogs or marketplace are you talking about? You can bundle a
plugin into a Firefox addon and make it available on addons.mozilla.org.
Post by o***@gmail.com
is there any other non-legacy native API recommended by Mozilla?
Chrome has NaCL and PPAPI.
We recommend open web technologies instead of any plugin. You can use
asm.js to compile binary languages down to a very fast form of JavaScript.

--BDS
loaferdog
2013-12-19 04:49:40 UTC
Permalink
Benjamin - it looks like Firefox26 only blocks (click-to-play) Java plugins
by default, instead of all NPAPI plugins. Is there a plan to block all NPAPI
plugins in the upcoming release as discussed in the original blog post at
https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2013/09/24/plugin-activation-in-firefox/
? Or are these plans shelved for now?



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Georg Fritzsche
2013-12-19 14:33:30 UTC
Permalink
The plan is just on hold, currently it looks like it will go out in Firefox 27 or 28 (see bug 941137).

Georg
Post by loaferdog
Benjamin - it looks like Firefox26 only blocks (click-to-play) Java plugins
by default, instead of all NPAPI plugins. Is there a plan to block all NPAPI
plugins in the upcoming release as discussed in the original blog post at
https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2013/09/24/plugin-activation-in-firefox/
? Or are these plans shelved for now?
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