About browser plugins

[Kevin Kinsey]

Jouni Laakso wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I was wondering if I can share my thougths about plugins. 
> 
> Flash player plugin has been in headlines for a long time.
> It is frustrating that plugins don't exist in native
> Www-browser ports because maby around 1/4 of www-sites uses
> flash content. 

My guess is that in order to avoid POLA violation, the
architects of our OS have simply allowed the software that
performs this task to live in the ports tree where it is.  
Installing 2 ports and modifying /etc/libmap.conf as instructed
serves well enough to enable Flash 7 support in my 
Gecko-based browsers; but, as you observe (I am thinking)
and as I've noted, this isn't what some other people call
"plugging in".
 
> Emulated Linux-Opera works with sound support. 

I haven't tried flash+Opera.  No particular issues with
the setup described above.

> I've read about NS-plugin format from opera.com and plugins 
> to Opera are compatible with plugins with Mozilla Firefox.
> 
> Browsers usually (Firefox is) are ported to the operating
> system later after the official project and because of this
> for the manufacturers, Adobe for example, it must be
> difficult to compile a plugin for *BSD or any other os
> besides the most used. 
> 
> My message: Firefox seems to be the most liked browser.
> Maby FreeBSD or any development should be done to the
> official Firefox-projects files. This is how the making of
> plugins becomes easier for the manufacturers. It seems to
> be minor patching, I don't know.
> 
> Does anyone know about "NS" plugin format? If only one
> plugin is required for all browsers? How about a reference
> Web Browser agreement among manufacturers?

If you cvsup your ports tree or head over to freshports.org,
you'll find that "nspluginwrapper" was added to the ports 
tree roughly one week ago.  (Dave Grochowski, if you read this,
"thank you" on behalf of one/several/many. :-) )

So, perhaps things are headed (optionally, of course) in 
the direction you are alluding to?

I've not yet read the docs on this, but maybe it's a step....

Kevin Kinsey
-- 
It was wonderful to find America, but it
would have been more wonderful to miss it.
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