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Even now, if you dug deep enough, you could probably find web pages that required you install RealPlayer to view their old videos. Plug-ins will likely never vanish completely from the web. RELATED: Why Browser Plug-Ins Are Going Away and What's Replacing Them A plug-in is a program that websites can require. They were necessary when browsers weren’t evolving fast enough - like back in the Internet Explorer 6 days - but now need to go away. An extension or add-on adds a new feature to your browser that you can use, if you like. Note that browser plug-ins are different from extensions, or add-ons. They aren’t sandboxed - except on Chrome, and even that sandbox won’t protect you from everything. If an attacker finds a hole in your browser plug-in, they can generally exploit that hole to gain access to the system. Chrome uses PPAPI, which is designed to provide additional sandboxing - but even it isn’t ideal.

Internet Explorer uses ActiveX, which is notorious for its security problems. Firefox still uses the NPAPI plug-in system created for Netscape Navigator. It’s just up to websites to switch over to the in-browser features from those old plug-ins they’re still using.Īnd plug-ins really are old. Web browsers are becoming ever more capable, and the functions that once required browser plug-ins - various video playback features, video chatting, animations, in-browser games, and more - are now built into modern browsers.
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RELATED: How to Protect Yourself from All These Adobe Flash 0-Day Security Holes
