NPAPI Plugin Perspectives and the Oracle JRE
Carlos Fernando Gonçalves
Java’s rapid rise to fame 20 years ago began with a tumbling duke applet running in the HotJava browser. Applets allowed richer development functionality at a time when browser capabilities were very limited, and provided centralized distribution of applications without requiring users to install or update applications locally.
HotJava’s support for applets was picked up by Netscape. In 1995 Netscape Navigator 2.0 and plugins became more popular to expand the kind of content that could be displayed. Navigator’s plugin interface (NPAPI) was adopted by other browsers and supported since 2004. Support for Java applets across several different browsers was implemented relying on the common NPAPI plugin interface to provide cross-browser compatibility of Java applications running on the web.
As Java evolved to become one of the leading mainstream development platforms, so did the applet’s hosts – the web browsers. The rise of web usage on mobile device browsers, typically without support for plugins, increasingly led browser makers to want to restrict and remove plugin support from their products, as they tried to unify the set of features available across desktop and mobile versions. Coincidental with the rise of mobile was the emergence of the “app store” model rather than “plugin based” models for application delivery. The “app store” model grew for reasons related to simplicity, security, and centralized availability. Given these evolutions in mobile, delivery, and capabilities, the set of browsers that continue to support standards based plugins has shrunk over time.
The announcement from Mozilla provides a timeline for developers and users who rely on Mozilla Firefox for applets to evaluate and migrate to alternatives. You should consider using plugin-free technologies, like Java Web Start, or move to other supported browsers, before NPAPI functionality is removed from Firefox in their regular and/or Firefox Extended Support Releases.
As with other browsers, the Oracle JRE can only support applets on Firefox for as long as Mozilla provides the requisite NPAPI support. Having been in regular contact with the Mozilla engineering team over the past years, we have worked together to ensure that our common users benefit from improvements made in Firefox and the Oracle JRE. We'll continue to collaborate on enabling a smooth transition to plugin-free technologies like Java Web Start.
Meanwhile, we don’t plan to provide additional browser-specific plugins, as such plugins would require application developers to write browser-specific applets for each browser they wish to support. Moreover, we would only be able to offer a subset of the required functionality, different from one browser to the next, impacting both application developers and users.
As with previous transitions, any additional information specific to Oracle products will be provided by the corresponding product teams. Internet Explorer and Safari browsers are not impacted by this change.
System administrators who want to prepare for the transition and learn more about applets (and other kinds of Java applications) running inside their organization should evaluate the Java Advanced Management Console.
https://blogs.oracle.com/java-platform-group/
Cordialmente,
Carlos Fernando Gonçalves
@mercuriocfg @javanoroeste
http://www.globalcode.com.br/treinamentos/cursos/videoaulas/java-e-tv-digital
