Future of FireBreath ? Will it be dead?

Question

I am creating plugins which target multiple browsers like IE, Mozilla Chrome etc. For this I am using the FireBreath framework. As I understand FireBreath uses ActiveX and NPAPI interfaces to interact with IE and other browsers.

Today I came across the following article Google and mozilla will drop support for NPAPI

If they really drop NPAPI support then, will FireBreath loose its crown of "Browser independent Plugin Framework" and just limit to an IE or do you have any plan to cope with this situation ?

Taproot

Mozilla has not announced dropping NPAPI, that's just poor wording in the Chromium blog post. Firefox 26 will have plugins click-to-play. – Spirant

Answer 1

I don't see this as really being a question for StackOverflow, but I will answer it anyway.

I think the writing on the wall is clear: NPAPI plugins are going away. This seems extraordinarily shortsighted to me, since those who have made this decision have not given us any solutions that can solve most of the problems currently solved with FireBreath. Some of those problems I don't believe there is any reasonable solution to; others there are a few possibilities, but we need to brainstorm solutions.

Over the next few weeks (and possibly more) we will be discussing possibilities and, assuming the community is willing to help, we will build a solution that will address as much of the gap as is possible.

I am not yet prepared to speculate in this public of a place on what that will look like, but we do have some ideas.

-- Richard Bateman, FireBreath founder

Calash

Quick update to this, we are looking at the possibility that it may be possible to create PPAPI plugins that are not NaCL; we'll keep you posted on that progress, it's still just a possibility – Calash

Hoping that this will evolve fast! :) – Fridlund

Another update. PPAPI plugins that are not NaCl do exist (flash for example), but there is no way to install them except by the chrome developers, so it is not an avenue available to us. Other approaches are being investigated. – Calash

I am also facing the same issue. How can I solve the issue in chrome?.. Have any updates?.. or provide any alternative solution. – Sommers

FireBreath2 provides a solution to this. The bad news is the documentation is sparse so far since the community hasn't stepped up to help with it much. firebreath.org/display/fb2/FireBreath+2.0+Home – Calash