Mozilla deprecates NPAPI / Pale Moon will keep NPAPI Thread

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LimboSlam
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Re: Mozilla announces the end of NPAPI plugins in Firefox

Unread post by LimboSlam » 2015-10-10, 00:26

I was just wondering because once the entire web gets on bored with this, where does that leave us? I'm pretty sure there's no point supporting old technology which would mean deadweight in Pale Moon. Though I don't think 2-3 years is enough time for our growing web.
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Re: Mozilla announces the end of NPAPI plugins in Firefox

Unread post by New Tobin Paradigm » 2015-10-10, 00:29

LimboSlam wrote:I was just wondering because once the entire web gets on bored with this, where does that leave us? I'm pretty sure there's no point supporting old technology which would mean deadweight in Pale Moon. Though I don't think 2-3 years is enough time for our growing web.
It leave us still having the option to load up NPAPI Plugins.. If there are any in the future is irrelevant. However, I don't think plugin technology will stay dead.

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Re: Mozilla announces the end of NPAPI plugins in Firefox

Unread post by astewart » 2015-10-10, 02:26

Moonchild wrote:
Off-topic:
Considering I have a "black" thumb, that won't work for me. I can always fall back on translations or doing art, or maybe even something completely different like helping out in a dog shelter! Who knows. Suggestions? ;-)
Having spent 40 years in electronics, followed by 8 years at a shelter, I can say you might recover a level of sanity and warmth that you didn't know you had lost. And most shelters would be very happy to get an artist to help out. You might have to shift from wolves to pit bulls, but, hey, they are all wolves in their own minds :)
loxodont wrote:If I'm wrong, I would suggest cat shelters, as I can tell they are a pleasure, even if you get nothing paid
Speaking as a dog person, you may be wrong [ to suggest cats ]- but our shelter has dogs, cats, rabbits, rats, guinea pigs, chickens, goats, and horses and a peacock. If you can't find something to suit you, well :wtf:
And the pay is a good night's sleep.

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The future of Plugins for PaleMoon

Unread post by bawldiggle » 2015-10-10, 04:28

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my original thread merged to here by moderator :)
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Today I read a Mozilla blog NPAPI Plugins in Firefox dated yesterday. The source was in a HowToGeek email newsletter, along with a substantial comment by the author of HTG articles "Lowell Heddings"

As I read it ... tell me if I am wrong ... plugins for Firefox and Chrome (and Edge ?) are non existent (or in the case of FF are to be dropped.
Where will that leave Palemoon ? On the surface it reads like other browsers will deliver everything on a web page, whether the user likes it or not -AND/OR- useful plugins eg, VLC, preferred PDF readers, etc ... will be locked out

My marriage with Pale Moon is rock solid but I am curious as to what the NPAPI Plugins blog is about and how it might affect (if atall) the availabilty of plugins for Pale Moon.
- Personally I have 3 active plugins and 3 disabled. The biggest waste of space has got to be Silverlight (the only time I strike it is on MS sites.)
- now Firefox are going to encourage Flash with some coaching by Adobe ... and I thought Flash is dead ... my cynical side smells money in this cozy development.
- how will these developments affect extensions for Palemoon ?

As a naive player will FireFox's announcement limit the availability of extensions and/or plugins a developers of plugins and extensions are pushed into the unwanted basket.

Not panicking ... just curious ;)

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EDIT
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Earlier posts in this thread have answered my curiosity
Last edited by bawldiggle on 2015-10-10, 07:14, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: The future of Plugins for PaleMoon

Unread post by LimboSlam » 2015-10-10, 05:01

No, Pale Moon will continue the support for NPAPI Plugins said Matt as I was very concerned too. Here is the thread: https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=9805

Moderator Note: Threads merged
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Re: Mozilla announces the end of NPAPI plugins in Firefox

Unread post by loxodont » 2015-10-10, 09:46

Off-topic:
astewart wrote:Speaking as a dog person, you may be wrong [ to suggest cats ]- but our shelter has dogs, cats, rabbits, rats, guinea pigs, chickens, goats, and horses and a peacock. If you can't find something to suit you, well :wtf:
And the pay is a good night's sleep.
I'm not such a big horse friend as they always tended to throw me off, but all these animals :o - sounds like paradise. You must be a happy person. ;)

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Re: Mozilla deprecates NPAPI / Pale Moon will keep NPAPI Thr

Unread post by Moonchild » 2015-10-10, 10:10

For the people concerned with security risks as a main reason to hard-remove plugins: the bar can be raised by not enabling them by default but asking by default. That is as simple as flipping one preference in about:config. Do that, and any concerns about newly-installed plugins (you were paying attention when installing software, right?) running without your knowledge will be squashed.

As for Unity... I don't see how Unity, in particular, can performantly work inside a browser without using binary components from a third party. Basically it'd still be a plugin, just called differently, and without the flexibility of choice or control over its state. If a 0-day vulnerability is found in Unity in the future, how will you mitigate that threat when it is integrated in the browser and always-on? If they are going to use an EME-alike method of downloading Unity components on-the-fly to work around this, how much of a security nightmare would that be?
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Re: Mozilla deprecates NPAPI / Pale Moon will keep NPAPI Thr

Unread post by Antonius32 » 2015-10-10, 12:18

Moonchild wrote:For the people concerned with security risks as a main reason to hard-remove plugins: the bar can be raised by not enabling them by default but asking by default. That is as simple as flipping one preference in about:config.
What's the name of that preference?

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Re: Mozilla deprecates NPAPI / Pale Moon will keep NPAPI Thr

Unread post by Moonchild » 2015-10-10, 12:36

Antonius32 wrote:
Moonchild wrote:For the people concerned with security risks as a main reason to hard-remove plugins: the bar can be raised by not enabling them by default but asking by default. That is as simple as flipping one preference in about:config.
What's the name of that preference?
plugin.default.state -> if a plugin doesn't have a user-set state, it will default to this state (i.e.: also for new plugins)

0 = disabled
1 = click-to-play/ask-to-activate
2 = enabled (default for Pale Moon at the moment)
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Re: Mozilla announces the end of NPAPI plugins in Firefox

Unread post by CharmCityCrab » 2015-10-10, 18:32

Matt A Tobin wrote: 2-3 years down the road? We would still be capable of running NPAPI.. Why wouldn't we be..
Well, in theory, if all the major browsers follow Firefox's lead and deprecate NPAPI, then it is conceivable that no new NPAPI plug-ins will be created or updated. In that hypothetical future, where there are no legitimate plug-ins left that use NPAPI, continuing to support it would be a form of code bloat and an unnecessary potential vector for malware (Whether people are using no longer supported plug-ins with security holes that'll never be patched, or even if it's just that with no legitimate plug-ins left at some point, the only possible ones by default would be malwarish ones people install by mistake).

However, the world isn't at that point now, and probably won't be at that point in 2-3 years either. For one thing, we still don't know if the other browsers are going to follow Firefox's lead. Also, there is a possibility that even if, say, Adobe stops building a plug-ins using this method, that some open-source coders might launch a project, or continue an existing project, to create a plug-in designed to view legacy websites using Flash with no fall-back or to view PDFs. I could also imagine someone using the NPAPI architecture for something wholly new plug-in wise. Of course, that means Pale Moon is either going to have to grow it's marketshare or other browsers are going to have to stand behind NPAPI as well, to make it worth developing for, but it could happen.

In the near-term, with Pale Moon not adopting the DRM binary blob in an open-sourced container that Firefox is adopting to view some HTML5 videos from streaming rental services like Netflix [Edit: The name of it, which I couldn't recall when originally posting, is EME], it's probably important for Pale Moon to hold on to NPAPI compatibility so users can use those sites for as long as they retain Silverlight, Flash, and so on and so forth as a fallback for browsers without the new HTML DRM thing.

So, for now, I definitely think it's good that Pale Moon is hanging on to it. Eventually, I could see where in a few years it *might* no longer make sense to keep it, if a certain series of dominoes fall, but that's hypothetical and down the line, so that's probably one of those things that can be done if it needs to be done, and isn't worth worrying about right now.

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Re: Mozilla deprecates NPAPI / Pale Moon will keep NPAPI Thr

Unread post by LimboSlam » 2015-10-13, 01:30

Moonchild wrote:2 = enabled (default for Pale Moon at the moment)
Will this be changed? I think having the preference set to a 1 is logical (click-to-play/ask-to-activate) in security/privacy way of thinking.
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Re: Mozilla deprecates NPAPI / Pale Moon will keep NPAPI Thr

Unread post by Moonchild » 2015-10-13, 01:43

LimboSlam wrote:
Moonchild wrote:2 = enabled (default for Pale Moon at the moment)
Will this be changed? I think having the preference set to a 1 is logical (click-to-play/ask-to-activate) in security/privacy way of thinking.
No, because having the preference set to 2 is logical in an accessibility/convenience way of thinking. Click-to-play also doesn't work in all scenarios, leaving people dead in the water.
If you want tight security, then the setting should be 0 (never activate unless the user specifically sets it to)
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Re: Mozilla announces the end of NPAPI plugins in Firefox

Unread post by Trippynet » 2015-10-13, 11:58

LimboSlam wrote:I was just wondering because once the entire web gets on bored with this, where does that leave us? I'm pretty sure there's no point supporting old technology which would mean deadweight in Pale Moon. Though I don't think 2-3 years is enough time for our growing web.
Personally, I'd say that if a feature becomes completely useless in the future, removing it wouldn't be a problem. However right here and now, plugins are still widely used. Personally, I don't feel it's up to the browser to decide/dictate what people should and shouldn't use.

Essentially, Mozilla are removing a useful function, and this will cause people problems. I don't really see how this can be classified as a positive thing.

tomysshadow

Re: Mozilla deprecates NPAPI / Pale Moon will keep NPAPI Thr

Unread post by tomysshadow » 2015-11-11, 05:55

This is the exact reason I just recently switched from Firefox to Pale Moon. I had known about Pale Moon for a while, but didn't want to switch to it because it doesn't have the nice rounded tabs newer Firefox versions have. At this point though, I'm willing to use it because I am fed up with Chrome, and now Firefox moving away from the use of plugins and extensions. At least the Pale Moon team knows what people really want in a browser: control over the browser.

Since Firefox 3 I have been drawn to Firefox's interface and its many features, and Firefox 4's Beta kept my interest, but when our school started using Chromebooks I switched to Chrome for a very long time because it was faster and synced my account nicely. Usually, I like Google products, but when Google made it so Chrome extensions could only be installed from the Chrome Web Store, I became quite angry because at the time, I liked writing userscripts. Userscripts aren't allowed on the Chrome Web Store, but were still counted as extensions, making userscripts literally impossible to install on Chrome without the use of another extension such as Tampermonkey. Afaik there is currently no way to use Chrome's own native support for userscripts which is a massive fail. I still stuck around though, because I liked Chrome's "sync" feature so much.

Then, Chrome decided to ditch NPAPI, I got my own laptop, and I learned Firefox also had a similar sync feature. I said goodbye to Chrome and switched to Firefox - only to discover that now, extensions need to be signed by Mozilla, making some useful extensions I use often completely unusable, and now they also plan on ditching NPAPI!? It feels like Mozilla is moving backwards. They're not innovating, they're just disabling features they programmed before. How am I supposed to play my favourite Shockwave, Unity and 3dvia Player games (all of which work beautifully well on Pale Moon) if none of the three main browsers support these anymore? I know the risks of using plugins, and I know only to enable them on sites which I know and trust. I'm tech savvy, I know what I'm doing. Yet, I no longer have control of that. If this had happened in Firefox's early days, there would've been a way to use about:config to get around this, but that's just the problem: it used to be Firefox and Internet Explorer, and nothing else. Firefox could add advanced options like this because all the inexperienced users had never even heard of Firefox before. Now, Firefox has become so popular it has to appeal to not just experienced users, but also those who know nothing about technology, and anything that could even potentially lessen security needs to be permanently disabled for them.

A browser is best when the user has control over the browser. I no longer have control over Firefox. Mozilla has control over Firefox. I don't have control over Chrome. Google has control over Chrome. I don't have control over Edge. Microsoft has control over Edge. And I don't like it. Maybe I'm making a big deal out of it, but I surf the web every day and I want the best browsing experience for myself. I realize HTML5 will replace plugins in terms of games being developed right now, but without plugins older games (and there are a lot of them) will be unplayable. HTML5 isn't the be-all end-all, but now browsers have to adapt to both people who think it is, and people who have no idea what it is.

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Re: Mozilla deprecates NPAPI / Pale Moon will keep NPAPI Thr

Unread post by LimboSlam » 2015-11-12, 02:55

tomysshadow wrote:A long post that shouldn't have been completely quoted.
No, your totally right. We feel you bro! So to make things easier with the transition, we have complete themes (Mozilla has stated they'll be removing completes themes sometime) specifically designed for Pale Moon, one is called Australium which gives you the experience of curved tabs, a.k.a Australis.
Last edited by Anonymous on 2015-11-12, 05:15, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Quoting long posts is bad, mmkay?
With Pale Moon by my side, surfing the web is quite enjoyable and takes my headaches away! :)
God is not punishing you, He is preparing you. Trust His plan, not your pain.#‎TrentShelton #‎RehabTime

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Re: Mozilla deprecates NPAPI / Pale Moon will keep NPAPI Thr

Unread post by New Tobin Paradigm » 2015-11-12, 05:18

tomysshadow.. First off Welcome.

Second, it pleases me to no end to see more and more users echo those sentiments. You are on the ball here, very much so. :thumbup:

tomysshadow

Re: Mozilla deprecates NPAPI / Pale Moon will keep NPAPI Thr

Unread post by tomysshadow » 2015-11-12, 07:18

Matt A Tobin wrote:tomysshadow.. First off Welcome.

Second, it pleases me to no end to see more and more users echo those sentiments. You are on the ball here, very much so. :thumbup:
Thanks - I know I talk a lot and what I just posted was a huge wall of text, but I'm glad at least someone agrees with me. I hope more people switch to Pale Moon because I am very impressed how great this browser is. I'm finding features I never even knew I liked - I never even really thought about it before, but now that I've considered it, I much prefer not having status text be in a popup.
LimboSlam wrote:
tomysshadow wrote:A long post that shouldn't have been completely quoted.
No, your totally right. We feel you bro! So to make things easier with the transition, we have complete themes (Mozilla has stated they'll be removing completes themes sometime) specifically designed for Pale Moon, one is called Australium which gives you the experience of curved tabs, a.k.a Australis.
Thanks for trying to help me out, but in fact I already did a search and found that same theme. The problem is I can't seem to pair that theme, Australium, with the theme I'm already using, Really Red. It's really minor though, so I think I'll be able to just get used to the rectangle tabs.

Glad that Pale Moon plans to continue with NPAPI - and that it's a fantastic browser too! :)

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Re: Mozilla deprecates NPAPI / Pale Moon will keep NPAPI Thr

Unread post by Trippynet » 2015-11-12, 09:39

tomysshadow wrote:I had known about Pale Moon for a while, but didn't want to switch to it because it doesn't have the nice rounded tabs newer Firefox versions have. At this point though, I'm willing to use it because I am fed up with Chrome, and now Firefox moving away from the use of plugins and extensions. At least the Pale Moon team knows what people really want in a browser: control over the browser.
You're probably in a minority of Pale Moon users if you actually like the look of modern Firefox, but each to their own. Check out the themes though as Lootyhoof has made a Pale Moon extension which makes it look like Australis Firefox. The thread is here: viewtopic.php?f=45&t=8735

Edit: I see you've already seen that one. Maybe you could post in that thread though to see if Lootyhoof has a solution that would allow you to theme the curved tabs perhaps, possibly with a persona or something?

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Re: Mozilla deprecates NPAPI / Pale Moon will keep NPAPI Thr

Unread post by riiis » 2015-11-12, 14:46

tomysshadow wrote:Thanks for trying to help me out, but in fact I already did a search and found that same theme. The problem is I can't seem to pair that theme, Australium, with the theme I'm already using, Really Red.
"Really Red" is a light theme, and can be used with "Australium" and most other Pale Moon complete themes. However, instead of selecting "Really Red" from "Add-ons Manager", select light themes using Persona Switcher or ThemeTool.

tomysshadow

Re: Mozilla deprecates NPAPI / Pale Moon will keep NPAPI Thr

Unread post by tomysshadow » 2015-11-12, 15:38

riiis wrote:
tomysshadow wrote:Thanks for trying to help me out, but in fact I already did a search and found that same theme. The problem is I can't seem to pair that theme, Australium, with the theme I'm already using, Really Red.
"Really Red" is a light theme, and can be used with "Australium" and most other Pale Moon complete themes. However, instead of selecting "Really Red" from "Add-ons Manager", select light themes using Persona Switcher or ThemeTool.
Using ThemeTool worked. Thanks, and sorry for kind of hijacking the thread and making i go off topic :oops: We were talking about NPAPI, weren't we? :lol:

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