Plugins are a security and performance problem for Firefox users. NPAPI plugins are an obsolete technology, and Mozilla has been moving toward a Web which doesn't need plugins. The last remaining NPAPI plugin, Adobe Flash, has announced an end-of-life plan. To support the transition away from Flash, Firefox is working with other browsers to progressively and carefully make Flash usage less common. Below is the roadmap of past and future support for plugins in Firefox.
Schedule
- June 2016
- Starting with Firefox 47 in June 2016, all plugins other than Adobe Flash are click-to-activate. Users choose which sites are allowed to activate each plugin. In addition, the 64-bit Firefox for Windows only supports the Flash plugin.
- March 2017
- Starting with Firefox 52 in March 2017, plugins other than Adobe Flash are no longer supported in Firefox. Firefox Extended Support Release 52 will continue to support non-Flash plugins until early 2018.
- August 2017
- Starting with Firefox 55 in August 2017, users must choose which sites are allowed to activate the Flash plugin. Users will have the choice to remember the Flash setting per-site. This change will be rolled out progressively during August and September 2017.
In order to improve security and performance, Mozilla will maintain a list of sites which cannot use any plugins. - September 2017
- Starting with Firefox 56 in September 2017, Firefox for Android will remove all support for plugins.
- Late 2018
- In the second half of 2018, Firefox will no longer remember the Flash setting, and users will have to choose each session whether to activate Flash.
- Early 2019
- In early 2019, Firefox will show a user-visible warning on sites that continue to use Flash.
- 2019
- A few months after the user-visible warning, Firefox will disable the Flash plugin by default. Users will not be prompted to enable Flash, but it will still be possible to activate Flash on certain sites using browser settings.
- 2020
- In early 2020, Flash support will be completely removed from consumer versions of Firefox. The Firefox Extended Support Release (ESR) will continue to support for Flash until the end of 2020.
- 2021
- When Adobe stops shipping security updates for Flash at the end of 2020, Firefox will refuse to load the plugin.
See Also
Mozilla Firefox
- October 2015 - NPAPI Plugins in Firefox
- July 2016 - Reducing Adobe Flash Usage in Firefox
- July 2017 - Firefox Roadmap for Flash End-of-Life
Adobe Flash
- November 2015 - Flash, HTML5 and Open Web Standards
- July 2017 - Flash & the Future of Interactive Content
Google Chrome
- Flash Roadmap
- Sep 2013 - Saying Goodbye to Our Old Friend NPAPI
- May 2014 - Update on NPAPI Deprecation
- November 2014 - The Final Countdown for NPAPI
- August 2016 - Flash and Chrome
- December 2016 - Roll-out plan for HTML5 by Default
- July 2017 - Saying Goodbye to Flash in Chrome
Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer
- April 2016 - Putting Users in Control of Flash
- December 2016 - Extending User Control of Flash with Click-to-Run
- July 2017 - Flash on Windows Timeline
Apple Safari
- June 2016 - Next Steps for Legacy Plug-ins
- July 2017 - Adobe Announces Flash Distribution and Updates to End