Google To Halt The Netscape Plug-in API Support

Plugin-less web browsers is the future.

Introduced in late 90s with Netscape Navigator 2.0, Netscape Plug-in API (NPAPI) has transformed web browsers in ways that were hard to imagine. More than 20 years later, it looks like NPAPI now does more harm than good, which is why Google has recently announced it plans to get rid of the old dog.

According to Google Chrome security engineer, Justin Schuh, “NPAPI’s 90s-era architecture has become a leading cause of hangs, crashes, security incidents, and code complexity.” and it’s hard to argue with him.

Therefore, starting in January 2014, Google Chrome (Stable) will start blocking NPAPI plug-ins by default (while white listing the most popular ones such as: Silverlight, Unity, Google Earth, etc.) and plans to completely remove the NPAPI support by the end of 2014.

So here you have it, folks… And nothing of value will be lost.