The Web platform is powerful and can usually do everything that a plugin can do. Websites and publishers which currently use plugins such as Silverlight or Java should accelerate their transition to Web technologies. As this technology continues to evolve, Unity has announced an updated roadmap for its Web Player technology. Mozilla and Adobe will continue to collaborate to bring improvements to the Flash experience on Firefox, including on stability and performance, features and security architecture.Īs part of our plugin strategy, Mozilla and Unity are proud to jointly announce a close collaboration and an aligned roadmap that will enable Unity-based content to be experienced directly in the browser without plugins.
Moreover, since new Firefox platforms do not have to support an existing ecosystem of users and plugins, new platforms such as 64-bit Firefox for Windows will launch without plugin support.īecause Adobe Flash is still a common part of the Web experience for most users, we will continue to support Flash within Firefox as an exception to the general plugin policy.
This decision mirrors actions by other modern browsers, such as Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge, which have already removed support for legacy plugins.
Firefox began this process several years ago with manual plugin activation, allowing users to activate plugins only when they were necessary. Mozilla intends to remove support for most NPAPI plugins in Firefox by the end of 2016. Plugins are a source of performance problems, crashes, and security incidents for Web users. As browsers and the Web have grown, NPAPI has shown its age. Features such as clipboard access which used to require plugins are now available via native Web APIs. Mozilla continues to prioritize features that will make it possible for sites to switch away from plugins. Streaming video, advanced graphics, and gaming features have all become native Web APIs in the past few years. Easier to be aware on a 64-BIT browser since many if not most plug-ins have no 64-BIT declination (yet) and that is, as far as I’m concerned, the last of my worries.Mozilla has been steadily improving the Web platform to support features that were once only available via NPAPI plugins. I’m running Firefox 42 64-BIT and, if I use 64 (!) add-ons, I have not one plug-in installed. We are dealing with evidence, not with gadgets seemingly dressed up with a pseudo-improvement attitude in order to legitimate what is or can be an intrusion and/or a degradation of users’ liberty : NPAPI must no longer be supported, even as a “tolerance” interval to allow sites to move their a*s. I’m not a radical but there are times where a choice is incompatible with consensus. I believe browser developers should impose the natural course of technological evolution to websites and their administrators. I dislike the dilemma between audience and progress imposed by reluctant sites to adopt latest technology. I don’t use Silverlight, no more than Adobe’s Flash, I am of those who believe that html5 (browser capability to manage audio and video) is already a reality and fulfills tomorrow’s browser aims. That does not mean that they cannot protect their users by default, for instance by setting plugin contents to "click to play" instead of running them right away.
I think that browser developers should leave it up to the user to install and use plugins, provided that they don't cause instabilities or have known security vulnerabilities. Pale Moon for instance won't follow Mozilla, Google and Microsoft according to a post on the official forum. First, they can block updates of the browser to retain plugin functionality, or keep an older copy around for that purpose, or they may use a browser that won't discontinue support. Neither Google with its Chrome browser nor Microsoft's new browser Edge support Silverlight anymore. It is interesting to note that Firefox is one of the few mainstream browsers left that supports Silverlight. This ends support for Silverlight and other browser plugins that depend on NPAPI in all versions of the Firefox web browser.