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/
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