I have a NPAPI plugin that communicates with chipdrives to sign data. It does not display anything. The plugin supports the NPAPI interface. I can install it in Firefox, packaged as a XPI file. I can install it in Chrome using a CRX file. I have a CAB for IE. Works on MacOS for Chrome and Firefox too. The only unsupported browser by now is the Safari Browser. (And Opera but noone cares).
Some browsers, such as Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, have removed support for the NPAPI plugin.Refer to the following for the status of the NPAPI plugin support amongst browser versions:
Npapi Plugin Download For Mac
The Google Chrome browser version 45 completely dropped support for NPAPI in September 2015. This means plugins for Java, Silverlight, Facebook Video and other similar NPAPI based plugins will no longer run in Chrome.
Edit: My reason for the question is that a web-app, which requires Flash and Java, suddenly stopped working. So I'm looking for a quick workaround to temporarily run the old version of Chrome side-by-side with the current version. - Also for web-development I'm used to be able to do some testing with previous versions. From my experience with Firefox, I am able to do this without jumping through lots of hoops, as Firefox makes all old versions available for download! I do not understand the policy of Google in this regard.
In researching this, the top hit on Google for 'Chrome 45 Java' does not answer the issue at all: 'How to enable Java in Google Chrome 45'. Other links only recommend to switch browsers. On the StackExchange sites, I could not find this particular question or a download link to Chrome 44. The reason for asking this here, is to help users or web developers, who may be looking for the same thing and to possibly find a download source similar to the Firefox archive.
Chromium will not auto-update, thus this will keep on working albeit without any security updates, so use at your own risk (better in a VM). - More versions can be found by following the step-by-step instructions for Downloading old builds of Chromium: www.chromium.org/getting-involved/download-chromium
File Hippo lists previous versions with the correct MD5 hashes, but always links to the latest official one. This information still helps, as the MD5 can be used to find out, if an unofficial source has the original file. Here is one such file with Chrome 44.0.2403.130 on SourceForge: sourceforge.net/projects/gnuhub/files/googlechrome.dmg/download - The MD5 is listed here filehippo.com/download_google_chrome_for_mac/tech/62573 2E0A856BF525D196323890D72A80E902 If you trust the source of the MD5 hash, then the file should be trustworthy, but Google does not publish the hashes of their releases. The same steps can be followed to locate a windows version of Chrome 44 by searching for chrome_installer.exe.
You can download the last stable version of CHROME mentioned above(Chrome v44.0.2403.157) at the following GitHub linkDIR DOWNLOAD LINK 32-BIT INSTALLER CHROME V44.0.2403.157 =https%3A%2F%2Fgithub.com%2FBouowmx%2FGoogle-Chrome-44.0.2403.157-win%2Fraw%2Fmaster%2F44.0.2403.157_chrome_installer.exe&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNFz_6Y_nck25ITPfo81NgRmaSpOfQ
In 44.0.2403.157, you may encounter some hassles. You will have to enable NPAPI support in settings, "Enable NPAPI Mac, Windows. Enables the use of NPAPI plugins. This flag will be removed in Chrome 45, along with NPAPI support." There is also a "Deprecation guide" in place. [2]
Mozilla has been steadily improving the Web platform to support features that were once only available via NPAPI plugins. Streaming video, advanced graphics, and gaming features have all become native Web APIs in the past few years. Mozilla continues to prioritize features that will make it possible for sites to switch away from plugins. Features such as clipboard access which used to require plugins are now available via native Web APIs. As browsers and the Web have grown, NPAPI has shown its age. Plugins are a source of performance problems, crashes, and security incidents for Web users.
Mozilla intends to remove support for most NPAPI plugins in Firefox by the end of 2016. Firefox began this process several years ago with manual plugin activation, allowing users to activate plugins only when they were necessary. This decision mirrors actions by other modern browsers, such as Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge, which have already removed support for legacy 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.
Because 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. 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.
As 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. As this technology continues to evolve, Unity has announced an updated roadmap for its Web Player technology.
Websites and publishers which currently use plugins such as Silverlight or Java should accelerate their transition to Web technologies. The Web platform is powerful and can usually do everything that a plugin can do. In the rare cases where a site needs to extend Web technologies, the recommended solution is to develop the additional features as a Firefox add-on. Site maintainers should prepare for plugins to stop working in all versions of Firefox by the end of 2016.
Mozilla continues to work with the Oracle Java Platform Group to ensure a smooth transition for those web sites that use Java. More information from Oracle about Java transition plans can be found in a post from the Oracle team. Oracle recommends that sites currently using Java applets consider switching to plugin-free solutions such as Java Web Start.
The Mozilla team wants to work closely with affected publishers to make this transition as painless as possible. The Web provides an increasingly rich environment which should eliminate the need for plugins, and we are eager to continue improving the Web platform for any use cases where plugins may still be required. Discussion about this announcement and any questions about the future of Firefox plugins should be directed to the Mozilla plugins development list.
In NPAPI architecture, a plugin declares content types (e.g. "audio/mp3") that it can handle. When the browser encounters a content type it cannot handle natively, it loads the appropriate plugin, sets aside space within the browser context for the plugin to render and then streams data to it. The plugin is responsible for rendering the data. The plugin runs in-place within the page, as opposed to older browsers that had to launch an external application to handle unknown content types. NPAPI requires each plugin to implement and expose approximately 15 functions for initializing, creating, deleting and positioning plugin content. NPAPI also supports scripting, printing, full-screen plugins, windowless plugins and content streaming.
NPAPI was frequently used for plugins which required intensive, low-level performance such as video players, including Adobe Flash Player and Microsoft Silverlight, as well as platforms for web applications such as the Java Runtime Environment.
NPAPI support among major browsers started to wane since 2015 and it was gradually deprecated over the following 7 years.[1] With the advent of HTML5, all major web browsers have removed support for 3rd party NPAPI plugins for security reasons.[1]
Scripting is a feature allowing JavaScript code in a web page to interact with the plugin. Various versions of Netscape and then Mozilla supported this feature using different technologies, including LiveConnect, XPConnect, and NPRuntime.
The disadvantage of LiveConnect is, that it is heavily tied to the version of Java embedded within the Netscape browser. This prevented the browser from using other Java runtimes, and added bloat to the browser download size, since it required Java to script plugins. Additionally, LiveConnect is tricky to program: The developer has to define a Java class for the plugin, run it through a specialized Java header compiler, and implement native methods. Handling strings, exceptions, and other Java objects from C++ is non-obvious. In addition, LiveConnect uses an earlier and now obsolete application programming interface (API) for invoking native C++ calls from Java, called JRI. The JRI technology has long since been supplanted by JNI.
XPConnect uses the type library information to marshal calls between different thread contexts and between JavaScript and natively compiled C++. XPConnect is used extensively throughout Mozilla. Starting with Netscape 6.1 and Mozilla 0.9.2, NPAPI was extended, so that a plugin could return a scriptable interface to itself and XPConnect would marshal calls to it from JavaScript and the C++ implementation.
XPConnect has no Java dependency. However, the technology is based on XPCOM. Thus the plugin developer must be familiar with reference counting, interfaces and IDL to implement scripting. The dependency on XPCOM led to certain dynamic linking issues (e.g. the fragile base class problem) which had to be solved before the plugin would work correctly with different browsers. XPCOM has since been changed to supply a statically linked version to address such issues. This approach also requires an .xpt file to be installed next to the dynamic-link library (DLL); otherwise the plugin appears to work, but the scripting does not, causing confusion.
Internet Explorer versions 3 through 5.5 SP2 supported NPAPI, allowing plugins that functioned in Netscape Navigator to function in Internet Explorer. Support came via a small ActiveX control (named "plugin.ocx") that acted as a shim between ActiveX and the NPAPI plugin. Microsoft dropped support in version 5.5 SP2 onwards for security reasons.[10][11][12][13] 2ff7e9595c
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