It’s no surprise then, that web browser makers have been on a bit of a crusade in recent years to eliminate this attack vector. The huge problem however is that it means that if that an application has a security vulnerability it can allow the attacker access to the host computer, which has potentially very dangerous consequences. The simplest way to describe NPAPI is that it’s a thin layer between the web browser and the operating system that allows the web browser to defer to applications installed on the local file system in order to display content that the web browser itself can not handle. Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, Opera, Google Chrome, and others have all supported NPAPI either in the past or to this day. As the web expanded and other web browsers were born, they also adopted NPAPI. NPAPI (Netscape Plugin Application Programming Interface) was created all the way back in 1995 by John Warnock and Allan Padgett at Adobe, who wanted to display PDF files from within the web browser (Netscape Navigator 2.0, at the time). Here is a brief history of plugins in web browsers, along with an explanation of what the implications are of Google killing off NPAPI in Chrome. With the recent news that Google has now killed off NPAPI plugins in Chrome 45, it has left many wondering exactly what NPAPI plugins are, and what impact this news will have, if any.
Septem3 min read What does it mean for you? What Chrome 45 dropping NPAPI Plug-in support means
He oversees the BuildVu product strategy and roadmap in addition to spending lots of time writing code. Leon Atherton Leon is a developer at IDRsolutions and product manager for BuildVu.
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