prestidigital's Journal: Firefox Plugins - NPAPI

Here is a letter I just sent to Mozilla regarding their plugin API:

Hello,

I was just at the Mozilla plugins page and when I clicked on links to the NPAPI documentation I got a message that my connection to:

http://devedge.netscape.com/library/manuals/2002/plugin/1.0/

was refused.

I was not surprised. I first wrote a plugin for Netscape 4.x about 3 1/2 years ago. It was a painful experience. The principle reason for my negative reaction was that documentation was hard to find, often incorrect, and constantly out of date. It got worse when Netscape went to LiveConnect. And now, despite years of continued development on the browser and all this new hype surrounding the Firefox release, the plugin API is still beyond reach. How can this be explained, much less tolerated? Mozilla spreads the message that ActiveX in inherently unsafe and the cause of all our web security woes, yet makes it impossible for developers to take advantage of any (alleged) alternative. Perhaps you expect that just because Firefox supports Flash, Quicktime, and Acrobat that everyone will be satisfied to use the browser. I do not think so. I would like to support Mozilla. I really, really would. But all around, Firefox continues to look and feel and act like a second-rate stand in. It certainly is not a practical alternative to IE when real work is on the table. It's time to put up or shut up. By promoting the message that ActiveX is a danger (i.e., to my customers), you are jeopardizing my ability to make a living.