Google has announced major changes to the way in which Chrome handles plug-ins, saying that from the beginning of 2014, it will block Netscape Plug-in API (NPAPI).
This will see several popular plug-ins, such as Google Earth and Silverlight, being blocked by Chrome within the next year.
In the company's blog, Justin Schuh, security engineer and plug-in retirement planner, said NPAPI was the first standard mechanism by which the browser could be extended, and that many modern Web platform features, including video and audio support, were first deployed via NPAPI-based plug-ins.
However, he says, today, browsers are faster, safer and more capable - while NPAPI's architecture has become a major culprit when it comes to hangs, crashes, security incidents and code complexity, and this is why Chrome will phase out support for NPAPI.
"From January 2014, Chrome will block Web page-instantiated NPAPI plug-ins by default on the Stable channel."
In the short-term, Schuh says users will be able to whitelist specific plug-ins, and Chrome will temporary whitelist the most popular plug-ins so as not to disrupt users. These include Silverlight, Unity, Google Earth, Java, Google Talk and Facebook Video.
However, the company aims to completely remove support by the end of 2014, timing that will hinge on usage and user feedback. "Built-in Flash plug-in and PDF viewer will be unaffected as they don't use NPAPI."
He adds it is Google's belief that the Web is ready for this. "NPAPI isn't supported on mobile devices, and Mozilla plans to block NPAPI plug-ins in December 2013."
Schuh adds that anonymous Chrome usage data gathered by the company shows a mere six NPAPI plug-ins were used by more than 5% of users in the last month.
Also starting immediately, no new apps or extensions containing NPAPI-based plug-ins will be allowed in the Chrome Web Store.
Existing NPAPI-based apps and extensions may be updated until May 2014, following which they will be removed from the Web Store home page, search results, and category pages.
September 2014 will see all existing NPAPI-based apps and extensions being unpublished.
Schuh says there are alternatives to NPAPI, including NaCl, Apps, Native Messaging API, and Legacy Browser Support.
"Moving forward, our goal is to evolve the standards-based Web platform to cover the use cases once served by NPAPI," he concludes.
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