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Comment by mindcrime | Hacker News Reader

It would be pretty awesome if we can get to a place where browser extensions are truly cross-browser. At least for some definition of "browser extension".

I'd be OK with a "common core" that's cross-browser, and the browser makers continuing to support their own extension APIs as well, IF the "core" API never becomes as powerful as the old, native APIs. I'd hate to see the native APIs go away completely though, as I don't like the idea of artificially restricting the range of possible plugins.

Then again, I am already annoyed by Chrome ditching NPAPI and leaving us in a place where, AFAIK, you can't run the Java plugin in Chrome. OTOH, JWS still works (I think) which is something at least...

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To be fair, no one should be using Java applets in this day and age, and hopefully this will finally kill them off for good.

Though, now you can't make certain types of sockets in browser...

Nor can you integrate with the local filesystem, or call native APIs. With a hidden Java applet, it was pretty easy to make a full-fledged application that just happened to have a web-based API. That's getting a lot harder.

Chrome extensions have an API called Native Messaging which is roughly the postMessage API over stdin/stdout. It works, but isn't cross-browser. Alternatively, you can start up a local server and make XHR or WebSocket calls to localhost. However, both of those require the user going through an external install process. Maybe, in the current security landscape, that's the way it has to be, but it's kind of annoying.

Not sure I agree with that. I like, for example, the Java applet that goes with FreeMind for viewing mindmaps.

Java is still required for a lot of educational gizmos online (like physics demos/examples). Hopefully there'll be an effective way to keep such things alive "in this day and age".

>It would be pretty awesome if we can get to a place where browser extensions are truly cross-browser.

Yes, yes, yes!

There is absolutely no reason why this can't be done. And, here's how it should work:

You go to a website, and you save a page as an html file. Then you go into your browser and load that file as an extension. There is a simple convention where the extension asks for permissions when it attempts the action.

I mean, hey, if there isn't going to be an economic incentive to write these things, you might as well make it easy and fun for devs to write and distribute them.

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