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Farewell, NPAPI! Google Chrome's internal Flash plugin now on by default
About two weeks ago, Google and Adobe officially debuted the results of their cooperative efforts, releasing an internal Flash Player plug-in for Google Chrome. Today, the Chromium Nightly build flipped internal Flash support on by default --meaning we'll probably see this pushed to the dev channel in short order.
With Google and Adobe as two of the key players in the Open Screen project, it made perfect sense to team up and deliver a more hassle-free Internet experience for users of Google Chrome. No, this won't make a difference to people like you and me who both know how to and enjoy customizing our browsers. But it's one less potentially confusing step for average users -- who may not understand what that pop-up bar means about needing a plug-in to play content on the page they're viewing. No blue Legos here, people.
One other place internal Flash is a big win is on Linux. I play with a number of different distros, and Flash support isn't always included out-of-the-box. With Chrome's internal player, I've now got a Linux browser that automatically supports the Flash upload elements in our CMS -- without having to seek out an additional download.
When I originally posted, concerns were voiced that internal Flash was going to somehow turn Chrome into a "bloated mess." If anything, the internal player is more efficient with system resources than the standard NPAPI plug-in (which actually originated at Adobe), and it's made no impact on the size of the installer. Chromium's mini_installer.exe for Windows today still weighs in at 14MB, the same as it did prior to the addition of internal Flash.
Google and Adobe are hoping that the change will bolster security -- since Flash will update via Chrome's intelligent built-in updater -- and possibly pave the way for a more modern plug-in architecture.
With Google and Adobe as two of the key players in the Open Screen project, it made perfect sense to team up and deliver a more hassle-free Internet experience for users of Google Chrome. No, this won't make a difference to people like you and me who both know how to and enjoy customizing our browsers. But it's one less potentially confusing step for average users -- who may not understand what that pop-up bar means about needing a plug-in to play content on the page they're viewing. No blue Legos here, people.
One other place internal Flash is a big win is on Linux. I play with a number of different distros, and Flash support isn't always included out-of-the-box. With Chrome's internal player, I've now got a Linux browser that automatically supports the Flash upload elements in our CMS -- without having to seek out an additional download.
When I originally posted, concerns were voiced that internal Flash was going to somehow turn Chrome into a "bloated mess." If anything, the internal player is more efficient with system resources than the standard NPAPI plug-in (which actually originated at Adobe), and it's made no impact on the size of the installer. Chromium's mini_installer.exe for Windows today still weighs in at 14MB, the same as it did prior to the addition of internal Flash.
Google and Adobe are hoping that the change will bolster security -- since Flash will update via Chrome's intelligent built-in updater -- and possibly pave the way for a more modern plug-in architecture.
Comments
5
Subscribe to comments216Apr 12th 2010 9:43AM
Flash done right, and great HTML5 support. Google's going hard with this Chrome thing
BorderRuffianApr 12th 2010 10:48AM
I am not a fan of browser plug-ins in general, and Adobe's have never been very good (Flash, Acrobat, SVG - I'm looking at you...) but I think this is potentially really bad. For many years now, plug-in makers have had to target two different architectures - Microsoft's and the Netscape Plug-in API. This is already one too many.
The advantage of NPAPI (and the reason it has hung around so long) is that they could be sure that it would work in pretty much any browser that didn't come from Redmond. If Google and Adobe want 'a more modern plug-in architecture' they need to work with the other browser makers (Microsoft included) not create a third 'standard'.
Zachary WaldowskiApr 12th 2010 11:48AM
Where does this put Chrome for Mac users? Is the embedded Flash the same old crappy Carbon Netscape one, or does it the Safari-style Cocoa NSAPI plugin?
MartinApr 12th 2010 11:54AM
Lee,
i downloaded the latest Chromium Windows build and cannot confirm that the Flash plugin has been enabled by default. Which nightly did you download and check?
jkroederApr 12th 2010 7:40PM
Yeah, I just gave this a try with the very latest Chromium windows build and I don't see any evidence of this either.
Maybe it's because I still have the Flash plugin installed. I've left it installed though for Firefox + Opera.