Author Topic: Firefox plugins  (Read 3557 times)

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Offline Maik

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Firefox plugins
« on: Monday, 06 February, 2017 @ 19:06:50 »
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Mozilla to Drop Support for All NPAPI Plugins in Firefox 52, Except Flash

Starting with 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.

NPAPI stands for Netscape Plugins API and is an ancient plugins infrastructure inherited from the old Netscape browser on which Mozilla built Firefox.

Today, audio and video streaming are supported by HTML5 itself, while games can be built with a vast array of technologies, all without the need of Java, Flash, or Silverlight.

Those technologies are now ancient, and so is the Firefox plugin infrastructure they're built to work on.
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/software/mozilla-to-drop-support-for-all-npapi-plugins-in-firefox-52-except-flash/


Might be a concern for some Firefox users, probably an unnecessary concern - this only applies to NPAPI plugins, not all add-ons/extensions:
* Google Chrome stopped using NPAPI plugins a while back and the world didn't end for Chrome users
* Firefox 64-bit doesn't (AFAIK) use NPAPI plug-ins (except maybe Flash and Silverlight), so you're probably not using any, anyway
* Firefox 'clones' such as Pale Moon will (AFAIK) continue to use NPAPI plugins
* Firefox 52 ESR (Extended Support Release) will continue support for NPAPI plugins until early 2018

What are plugins?
Is my PC 32-bit or 64-bit?
Am I using Firefox 32-bit or 64-bit?
Pale Moon web browser
How do I switch to Firefox ESR?

Plugins will probably pass unnoticed for most Firefox users.