Say goodbye to NPAPI

It might be a late discovery, but still. Chrome(ium?) will phaseout
NPAPI. [1] The part of the browser that loads external plugins to handle
unknown file types. Although Chrome is proprietary software it will set
the trend. Mozilla is also one step away from this, since last year's
click-to-run feature for plugins. [2]

What this means? The good thing – for certain Flash will be dead. The
bad thing? Websites will stop using plugins. Older versions of the HTML
specification will be unsupported (object tags requiring plugins, the
ugly embed). All the browser video plugins will stop working. Video and
audio in the browser window will be limited to the support internally in
the browser. Add a limited support of carefully selected video formats
and codecs to that in few proprietary browsers and you have the web
locked down.

For my project Linterna Mágica this means migration to HTML5 instead of
browser video plugins. So far I'm not pleased with the internal video
rendering of Abrowser (Firefox). Plugins are handling video better.

This is serious attack on choice by proprietary software even when you
don't use it.

What do you think?

[1]
http://www.firebreath.org/display/documentation/Browser+Plugins+in+a
+post-NPAPI+world

[2]
http://thenextweb.com/apps/2013/01/29/mozilla-to-enable-click-to-play-for-all-firefox-plugins-by-default-except-the-latest-flash-version/