Chrome removing support for NPAPI this coming year

[Tanooki]

I've been reading up on this here and it clearly was delayed as it should have stopped this year. I see that NPAPI is going away, meaning a lot of plugins will be toast as Chrome wants to have none of that and seemingly just do it there way. What all exactly is going to end up no longer working is what I can't figure out other than people pointing fingers at Silverlight(netflix), UnityPlayer, and a few other notables. What happens to basic plugins like AdBlock, is that finished?

I've been contemplating going back to Firefox because I do use UnityPlayer and it doesn't work well in chrome as it causes other tabs to lag up. I had thought it was my older computer but it does the same on this one (not as bad though.)

[lisalover1]

This darn well better have some substantial improvements to memory efficiency and battery consumption in order to be justified. Regardless, as you said, there's always Firefox for plugins from here on out.

[Tanooki]

I put firefox on here as a test. I haven't looked at it in a year and it's not bad, seems nicer than it was as it was being a bit weird when I left it with memory. An interesting footnote I find is that the unity engine on Chrome causes some lag on other tabs that are open and opening more, but in Firefox that doesn't happen.

I'd like to know what impact this change to Chrome will have on extensions I use and others prefer. If there's none I'd probably stick with Chrome, but if not I would be just fine going back to firefox. I can see that Chrome this last year has owned like 60% of the whole browser market share and Firefox has fallen into the 25% range which is surprising. If they really are killing extensions I wonder how many people it will drive back to Firefox, Opera or whatever else.

[J T]

I recently found out that Netflix doesn't use silverlight in Chrome after I had a problem with silverlight that makes it so I can't watch Netflix in Firefox or IE.

[Pulsar_t]

I don't like any of the major browsers, IE is lacking in features, Chrome is Google's honeypot, and FF has lost its way entirely. Does this change affect Chromium as well?

[Tanooki]

I don't know. It's all too fuzzy from what I dug up at this point which is why I gave up and made that post to see if someone else had a bigger picture on it.

I'm fine going back to FF if I have to, I can manage it and I still prefer the interface, but Chrome seems to do what FF does with less plugins, less memory(slightly), and it syncs a bit easier and instantly while FF takes a little time to link up (failed even the first time so I had to reinstall it on my tablet.) FF isn't even on iphone, yet, they just announced in the last 3 weeks they would as Apple dropped their evil old way of blocking browsers that didn't use their webkit and wouldn't allow the use of their tools to make things loads fast so Safari seemed best.


I do know one thing though, with the plugins going away they're bringing the PC version into sync with the tablet version. On my nexus with chrome you can't add on stuff, at least not natively and not easily either so I can't even run an adblock on there which sucks as it eats up good data both on LTE and also my wifi too since AT&T has a monthly cap of 250GB. I'd think that if they really are bringing them into line I will no longer be able to use Adblock and FVD Downloader for embedded videos. That is totally unacceptable.

[Xeogred]

Firefox has consistently been my preference, but it probably has forced updates more often than Steam/PS3 combined at this point. It's up to version 34 something, which is just flat out hilariously goofy. But seriously, the big updates are the worst. There have been a few that completely changed the interface (as usual, never for the best) and even got rid of my quick bookmark toolbar icons. I've lost track of how many times I've had to look up ways to restore the look to version ~2 or how many plugins I've downloaded to enable that. Definitely gets tedious having to routinely fiddle with it after every handful of updates.

[CRTGAMER]

I've been reading up on this here and it clearly was delayed as it should have stopped this year. I see that NPAPI is going away, meaning a lot of plugins will be toast as Chrome wants to have none of that and seemingly just do it their way. What all exactly is going to end up no longer working is what I can't figure out other than people pointing fingers at Silverlight(netflix), UnityPlayer, and a few other notables. What happens to basic plugins like AdBlock, is that finished?

I've been contemplating going back to Firefox because I do use UnityPlayer and it doesn't work well in chrome as it causes other tabs to lag up. I had thought it was my older computer but it does the same on this one (not as bad though.)

Never tried Chrome, alway been happy with Firefox. I love the option of installing additional Plugins of my choosing. One of my favorites, the Plugin Quick Java QJ Button that turns off or on Java in a "Flash". The QJ button is right on the Menu Bar for an easy click off (red) and to on (blue).



I normally leave Java and Javascript disabled to really speed up the page loads (even with digital cable connection). Use Java only when needed such as watching a YouTube video.



The only time I enable Java on Racketboy is to view a (Java required) Spoiler post. Sometimes I do not even bother since the page has to be reloaded.

[darsparx]

Honestly if you're still on chrome to do netflix in a year or two(once they get their act together and release it to the public) you shouldn't even need the silverlight. 1.) because it's being discontinued and 2.) they are supposed(key word there) to be replacing with a html 5 engine on the site. Now if they ever do fully get it out is the question if it isn't already...

[samsonlonghair]

I switched back to firefox earlier this year. I don't miss chrome one bit.