FireFox v52 ends NPAPI Support

[Rob Bond]

FireFox v52 began rolling out earlier this month. Apparently it no longer supports NPAPI-based plugins, like the Hikvision's Webcomponents. I had been using Firefox to manage my camera and suddenly it stopped working, because it automatically updated to v52. I uninstalled and re-installed v51.

Here is the US English v51, should you need it:

Directory Listing: /pub/firefox/releases/51.0/win32/en-US/

p.s.: Disable Firefox automatic updates once you install v51 (Options=>Advanced=>Update)

 

[nayr]

just use IE and not Edge

 

[tangent]

The Pale Moon Project homepage is another option

 

[zero-degrees]

Several threads have already been created and discussed this. Your 51 will update again it's just a matter of time. You can manually add NPAPI support back in with the following steps I've outlined in a few threads.

open a new browser tab in firefox
1. enter the following: about:config
2. you will be prompted with a security warning, accept and move past it.
3. right click on the screen over one of the exsisting commands and goto "New" then select "Boolean"
4. enter the following: plugin.load_flash_only
5. accept/ok
6. set tag to "false"
7. accept/ok
8. press "shift+F2" to open command line
9. type "restart"
10. this will force firefox restart and when it comes back up you should be good to go!

Also vs. going back to previous versions that won't receive updates, if you really want to keep things going Mozilla will offer an ESR version for the next year. Normally this is for government agencies, universities, corp america to give them time to update/prepare for changes across their network since these are the people who never preplan. ESR info here: Firefox Extended Support Release FAQ

 

[Rob Bond]

just use IE and not Edge

Yes, I did try that under Windows 10 and it does work.

BTW, what causes the browser when connected to the camera to prompt there is a new version of the software every time I login to the camera? I believe I told it to install the newer version, but this messages seems persistent.

 

[Rob Bond]

Several threads have already been created and discussed this. Your 51 will update again it's just a matter of time. You can manually add NPAPI support back in with the following steps I've outlined in a few threads.

open a new browser tab in firefox
1. enter the following: about:config
2. you will be prompted with a security warning, accept and move past it.
3. right click on the screen over one of the exsisting commands and goto "New" then select "Boolean"
4. enter the following: plugin.load_flash_only
5. accept/ok
6. set tag to "false"
7. accept/ok
8. press "shift+F2" to open command line
9. type "restart"
10. this will force firefox restart and when it comes back up you should be good to go!

Also vs. going back to previous versions that won't receive updates, if you really want to keep things going Mozilla will offer an ESR version for the next year. Normally this is for government agencies, universities, corp america to give them time to update/prepare for changes across their network since these are the people who never preplan. ESR info here: Firefox Extended Support Release FAQ

>Several threads have already been created and discussed this.

I did a "FireFox" search, but must have missed them. I figured this was not "breaking news" but not finding a thread that obviously addressed this issue I created this one.

>Your 51 will update again it's just a matter of time.

Not if you disable the automatic update feature inside of Firefox. Correct mt is I am wrong (I updated my original post with this tip - thanks!)

Regarding the fix you mention, I read this is temporary and will stop working in V53.

 

[zero-degrees]

The real solution is to utilize the ESR release. This way you continue to get critical patch and security updates vs. shutting down updates all together and running an old version.

 

[Rob Bond]

The real solution is to utilize the ESR release. This way you continue to get critical patch and security updates vs. shutting down updates all together and running an old version.

Thanks for that. So how does Firefox ESR work? I see there is a download page (below), but how does one select the FireFox browser version that you are looking to maintain? Do you install the targeted version on your laptop (independent of ESR), then download FireFox ESR from the link below?

What version of FireFox fully supports Hikvision functionality?

FireFox ESR Downloads: Mozilla Firefox Web Browser — Download Firefox Extended Support Release in your language

 

[tangent]

Pale Moon supports and will continue to support the following features/technologies:

• Full UI customization
  
• Full theming (complete themes) and lightweight theming (personas)
  
• XUL and XBL to build interfaces and applications (including the ability to launch independent XUL-apps from the browser binaries).
  
• NPAPI plug-ins
  
• XPCOM binary components for extensions
• Overlay and bootstrapped extensions, including restartless ones
• Access to low-level APIs from extensions
  
• Pale Moon Sync (in the secure, time-tested Weave fashion)

Pale Moon future roadmap

 

[Fastb]

I took @tangent 's suggestion. I'm glad I did.
- No more re-loading a plug-in.exe for my single Dahua cam, then needing to re-load a different plugin.exe for my re-branded cams.
- Needing two versions of plugin.exe is a user headache. And only one can be active at a time. Re-load, Reload, Reload.
- Pale Moon handles it gracefully. And the UI is very similar to FireFox, which had been my browser of choice.
- Pale Moon avoids the short term fix of ESR (Extended Support Release). ESR will go away in the medium term.
- "Why dink with ESR?" I thought.....

In his list above, Tangent mentions other benefits of PM. I don't think they'll help me, 'cuz I don't understand em! lol

Give PM a try!

Fastb

 

[Rob Bond]

I too took the Pale Moon plunge. So far so good.

 

[JFire]

I just did that work around in the video. Very simple.

Sent from my SM-G928T using Tapatalk

 

[tangent]

In his list above, Tangent mentions other benefits of PM. I don't think they'll help me, 'cuz I don't understand em! lol

I just copied and pasted from the roadmap. NAPI plugin support is the only thing that really matters for cameras. There could be some other legacy extensions or addons that work in palemoon because of xpcom and xul suport.

I would still use firefox or chrome as your primary browser and save palemoon for cameras to reduce the risk of browsing the web with all sorts of plugins and such. I haven't payed much attention to what's changed in the recent firefox roadmap