Is there any web browser with NPAPI plugins support?

Question

As per this article, Mozilla has dropped the support of NPAPI plugins from Mozilla Firefox version 52. Is there any web browser with NPAPI plugin support? I have to use a website frequently, which uses Oracle Java plugin. I'm using Ubuntu 16.04 64 bit with Java JDK 8u121.

Helps are much appreciated. Thanks.

Edit1: After 3 years of asking this question, Java plugin still works fine in Palemoon v28.9.2-1 64 bit on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. Java version is JRE 8u251 64 bit

Edit2: As of 20th October 2020, Oracle completely removed Java Plugin from 8u271 JRE and JDK packages mentioned in this article. But 8u261 or prior versions works just fine.

Solution 1

The Pale Moon web browser is an interesting option. In the document Pale Moon future roadmap they make this statement:

"Pale Moon supports NPAPI plug-ins. Unlike Firefox, we will not be deprecating or removing support for these kinds of plug-ins. This means that you will be able to continue using your media, authentication, and other plug-ins in Pale Moon like Flash, Silverlight, bank-authenticators or networking plug-ins for specific purposes."

Solution 2

You can use the Extended Support Release of Firefox 52 as follows:

The following steps should work (tested on Mint 18 based on Ubuntu 16.04 and Mint 19 based on Ubuntu 18.04):

1. Download and extract the Firefox ESR install from here: Download Firefox Extended Support Release. Make sure it doesn't auto update by changing the update settings in preferences.
2. Launch Firefox and type about:config in the location bar
3. Accept the risks and then add a key (right click mouse -> New -> Boolean)
4. Call the key plugin.load_flash_only and set it to false
5. Add a Firefox extension for switching the user agent eg. User-Agent Switcher
6. Set the user agent to an earlier version of Firefox on Linux eg. Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i586; rv:31.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/31.0
7. Close Firefox
8. Download the tar.gz JRE package for Linux from Java.com and store the file in the Downloads folder in your home folder (i.e. ~/Downloads). It will be of the form: jre-8u121-linux-i586.tar.gz for the 32 bit version. Choose the 32 bit or 64 bit version according to the version of Firefox ESR you downloaded.

9. Then do the following in a shell to extract the JRE (replacing with 64 bit versions if needed):

   sudo mkdir -p -v /opt/java/32
   cd ~/Downloads
   tar -zxvf jre-8u121-linux-i586.tar.gz
   sudo mv -v jre1.8.0_* /opt/java/32
   

10. Now the Java needs to be linked to Firefox. In a shell:

    mkdir -p ~/.mozilla/plugins/
    cd /opt/java/32/jre1.8.0_121
    ln -sf $PWD/lib/i386/libnpjp2.so ~/.mozilla/plugins/
    

11. Launch Firefox and verify your Java version here: Verify Java Version

12. If it doesn't work and the wrong Java plugin appears to be loaded eg. IcedTea, then remove them:

    sudo apt-get remove icedtea-plugin icedtea-8-plugin icedtea-netx icedtea-netx-common
    

Solution 3

EDIT:

Here's a list of browsers that still support NPAPI from Wikipedia:

---

There is a special version of Firefox that still supports NPAPI plugins.

From the How-To-Geek:

Mozilla ended support for traditional NPAPI browser plugins, aside from Flash, with Firefox 52 on March 7, 2017.

However, Mozilla offers an “Extended Support Release”, or ESR, branch of the Firefox browser. This browser is intended for organizations to have a stable, long-term platform that only receives security updates, not the frequent feature updates and changes that the main version of Firefox receives.

Firefox 52 ESR was released on March 7, 2017 and includes support for non-Flash browser plugins. Mozilla will continue supporting Firefox 52 ESR with security updates until sometime in the second quarter of 2018. At that point, the next ESR version of Firefox will drop support for NPAPI plugins.

Visit the Download Firefox Extended Support Release page to download the ESR version of Firefox. If you’re not sure which version to download, choose the 32-bit version of Firefox for maximum compatibility with older plugins. Older plugins may not have 64-bit versions available.

Solution 4

In all honesty, we don't have any good options today

Pale Moon has only partial support for Java Plugins. At least, they don't work under Wayland. It is true for every browser, derived from Firefox, which for now is any browser from "NPAPI support list". But at least Pale Moon team supports their project.

Gnome Web shares the same problem, but even to a higher degree. Same with Konqueror.

Midori used to be a good browser, but hasn't been update for way too long

SeaMonkey doesn't support NPAPI at all. They even state it on their website:

we are not planning to support any abandoned stuff like classic extensions and NPAPI plugins on our own ... when they are gone, they are gone

Safari has been gone for years now

So, yeah... I keep a virtual machine with Windows and (omg, this is embarrassing) IE installed, just to be able to work with my bank account

View more solutions

Comments

[Admin]

Related: How to install Firefox 52 ESR on 16.04?

[La Corazón]

Yes I'm aware of Firefox ESR. But it's another workaround since How To Geek says At that point, the next ESR version of Firefox will drop support for NPAPI plugins. Now I use Firefox 52.0.2 64 bit in which Java plugin works (using plugin.load_flash_only flag), but it will be gone soon after update to 53. All I need is a long term solution, a browser which support Java plugin for long.

[You'reAGitForNotUsingGit]

@Lijin - You may want to try Midori or GNOME Web then

[La Corazón]

Yes. I just downloaded Midori. Haven't tried it yet. Any ideas about how to enable/install Java Plugin in that?

[You'reAGitForNotUsingGit]

@Lijin Well, here's an answer for how to enable Java in Midori. Also see the edit to my answer; I included a list of browsers that still support NPAPI.

[La Corazón]

Thanks for the list of browsers. But, what if I already installed JDK already with .tar.gz file? How can I get the plugin in Midori?

[La Corazón]

Seems to be a reasonable browser. I'll have a look. Thanks

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson]

@Lijin: Yeah, I successfully tested a NPAPI plugin with it myself. Then I returned to FF 52 with "plugin.load_flash_only" set to "false". If that trick doesn't work with FF 53, I'll probably install Pale Moon again.

[La Corazón]

Yes. I'm also using the flag plugin.load_flash_only in Firefox 52 for Linux. It will be removed in Firefox 53, because I saw that it was removed in Firefox 53 for Windows yesterday.

[La Corazón]

I installed Pale Moon now, but I'm not getting Java plugin in the plugin list. I thought that, if Java plugin is there in Firefox, it will be automatically imported in Pale Moon. Any idea how to install Java plugin in Pale Moon?

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson]

@Lijin: Not offhand, but I added a comment on the question you asked about that topic.

[La Corazón]

But when Firefox ESR 53 is out and this plugin support will be removed. Right? Thanks for the detailed answer

[mcarans]

The next ESR release will be Firefox ESR 59. ESR 52 will be supported until Q2 2018 according to this: mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/faq. By then I hope that tools will have migrated from the Java web plugin or that there will be another solution!

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson]

@Lijin: plugin.load_flash_only -> false works for me with FF 53 from the Ubuntu archive.

[La Corazón]

yes it works. I checked yesterday as I updated FireFox to 53. Great :) ;) Off-topic note: That flag won't work anymore in Firefox for Windows, sadly.

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson]

@Lijin: And it doesn't work with FF 54 for Linux either. :(

[La Corazón]

yes it's not working in FF 54. And it's not working in Pale Moon 27.3.0 either. Not sure what to do. I'm on Ubuntu 16.04 64 bit and Oracle JDK 1.8.0_131 64 bit. I'm not sure how do I link the java plugin to Pale Moon. In plugins list Java plugin is there, but Java plugin is not working as expected. I already have the plugin file libnpjp2.so in /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/ and in /usr/lib/firefox-addons/plugins/ and also in /usr/lib/java/jdk1.8.0_131/jre/lib/amd64/. could you look into it?

[La Corazón]

Gunnar: And yesterday, I installed FF 54 32 bit and JDK 1.8.0_131 32 bit on a Windows 64 bit machine, Java plugin is working smoothly, without any issues. tested in Pale Moon 32 bit for Windows too. :(

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson]

@Lijin: Another NPAPI plugin works fine for me with Pale Moon 27.3.0 on Ubuntu. I'd advise you to edit your other question with these news (to bump it in the list). I don't have any further ideas.

[N0rbert]

Firefox ESR is available on Jonathon F's PPA. It passes Java Plugin check and Adobe FlashPlayer test.

[N0rbert]

firefox-esr package was requested on LaunchPad (see bug 1676164).

[TimSparrow]

Downloaded PaleMoon and update java using instructions from this answer. It works (Kubuntu 17.10)