Bug#978042: libwebkit2gtk-4.0-37: fails to run plugin

[Ben Chin, KB]

Dear Berto,

Thanks a lot for you reply and provided information. For now we are 
going to apt-mark hold the libwebkit2gtk-4.0-dev package. So we can stay 
on the plugin-enabled version for the remaining life cycle of Debian 10. 
We might download the latest version and build it to enable plugin if we 
find it's very needed. We will also keep a copy of the source of v2.30.5 
just in case we cannot make the latest version work.

Actually during these few days, we have found a quite suitable 
alternative to the WebKit/Plugin architecture. It's called NWJS/NAPI. We 
find it can almost fully fulfill our needs and also quite easy to 
migrate to. The only drawback is, we cannot host the our application 
from network, everything must be at the local machine. Though this 
doesn't bring much negative impact to us.

Therefore, we can still keep on using WebKit/Plugin for some time. I 
will look into your web extension suggestion too.

I thank you and appreciate your kind concern and help.

Regards
Ben


On 19/1/2021 12:14 am, Alberto Garcia wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 27, 2020 at 09:11:14AM +0800, Ben Chin, KB wrote:
>> Dear Alerto,
>>
>> Thanks for your notification. I am sad to hear that the plugin
>> support will be removed.
>>
>> The plugin is our company's in house program to provide a way to
>> communicate between C/C++ and JavaScript, makes it possible for the
>> connected primitive hardware to play some roles in the evolving
>> Internet world.
>>
>> We don't use the full features of NPAPI, but just the
>> calling/passing functions and information between the browser and
>> the underneath lower level system/hardware resources.
>>
>> If removing of the plugin is inevitable, we will need to find an
>> alternative of WebKit to fulfill our goal.
> Hi Ben, and sorry for the late reply.
>
> There's going to be a new release (2.30.5) one of these days with the
> plugin process installed again, but the next stable branch (2.32.x)
> won't support NPAPI plugins.
>
> All major web browsers have removed support for these plugins, perhaps
> you could use a Web Extension?
>
>     https://blogs.igalia.com/carlosgc/2013/09/10/webkit2gtk-web-process-extensions/
>
>> Would it be possible to keep an older version of the plugin enabled
>> WebKit?  Like, the new WebKit would be version 3, and let the old
>> one survive as WebKit 2 and stay as it is?
> You can always keep the latest version that supports plugins
> installed. If what you're asking is "Can we keep that package
> officially in Debian together with the newer versions?" then I'm
> afraid that this is too much of a maintenance burden for this feature.
>
> But you can do that locally, i.e., modify and rebuild the package so
> it is co-installable with other versions of webkit. I can maybe help
> you if you have problems with that.
>
> Berto