14 DAY TRIAL // Google has finally disabled the NPAPI plug architecture for the Chrome browser, but the means to use that architecture will still be there for a few more months.
The NPAPI plugin architecture has been around for quite some time, and it helped people use some services like Silverlight or Flash, but that is coming to end. Developers have been trying to move their services to alternative technologies that don't rely on NPAPI, and they've done this for the most part, but it's possible that some users will feel the loss.
Some of the users might remember that when they visited websites that depended on the NPAPI architecture they received a message informing them that a certain plugin needed access. That behaviour has changed in the past year and a half and now that information is no longer displayed. Most website have been improved, and they are no longer using components that are no longer supported.
Google Chrome 42 is a turning point
Google's intention to change this important part of the infrastructure was made quite a while ago, and the first changes were implemented back in January 2014, with the 32.x branch. Now, the latest Google Chrome stable branch is 42.x and NPAPI has been officially disabled.
"In April 2015 (Chrome 42) NPAPI support will be disabled by default in Chrome and we will unpublish extensions requiring NPAPI plugins from the Chrome Web Store. All NPAPI plugins will appear as if they are not installed, as they will not appear in the navigator.Plugins list nor will they be instantiated (even as a placeholder). We will provide an override for advanced users (via chrome://flags/#enable-npapi) and enterprises (via Enterprise Policy) to temporarily re-enable NPAPI (via the page action UI) while they wait for mission-critical plugins to make the transition," reads the entry on chromium.org.
This override will be available only until September 2015 when the 45.x stable version for the Chrome browser is supposed to be out. Hopefully everyone will be ready until then, and the transition will be a smooth one.