YouTube had a test site back when where you could test using a codec instead of getting the video as an SWF object. That was a propriety spec that required a license fee for the codec. The default standard for video encoding was H_264. You still needed a codec to decode and play the video, but the codec would be delivered as part of the browser, and not be a third-party plugin. The biggest incentive for HTML5 was the keyword, which would let you embed video in a page and play it without needing Shockwave Flash. These days, everyone has gone to HTML5 and CSS3 as fast as they could. Guess what plugin was the principal reason for creating that ? :-p A while back, Mozilla instituted the 'plugin_helper' executable, which provided a sandbox for plugins to run in, in a separate sandboxed process so a crashing plugin didn't take the browser down with it.

Flash was also at the head of Mozilla's 'top crashers' list of thing that caused Firefox to die horribly when they misbehaved. The biggest use for Flash was video, which was delivered as SWF objects, and needed Flash player to run. I'm stunned that anyone still needs that support. I'm not stunned at all that Mozilla no longer supports running Java applets. The user should be able to accomplish anything they want to do using only what is delivered with the browser, and not need to run third party plugins.' Current development efforts start from the position 'Plugins are bad. At some point, Flash will simply go away.)īut it doesn't matter what browser you use. It's not available at all on mobile devices. (Flash is deprecated across the board, and is not being further developed. I still have Shockwave Flash enabled, as I still visit sites that use it, but FF will check the version of the plugin I have installed and refuse to run it if it's not the current release. Mozilla has been enforcing restrictions on plugins for some time. You needed a 32 bit version of Firefox to use it. Just out of curiosity, why do you need to run Java applets? I honestly don't recall the last time I visited a site that hosted any.įoggy memory says that the Java plugin was 32bit, and wouldn't run in 64bit Firefox.

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