934107 - [meta] Remove use of plugin enumeration

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Tech Evangelism Graveyard :: Other, defect)

Description

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

There are some websites that try to find out about media player plugins by enumerating all installed plugins (and then usually looking for specific plugins by name).

This function will practically go away in bug 757726. The patch will have some compatibility layer to still show some very common plugins, because of the mentioned web site.

The purpose of this bug is to get rid of high-profile websites using this enumeration. It is completely unnecessary, because there is another function to query for specific plugin names by name, and this will continue to work.

Even better would be to look for plugins by mimetype. That allows alternative implementations, e.g. on Linux mplayer plugin can implement Quicktime videos. Sites should be encouraged to look for mimetypes only.

How to use both browser API functions can be explained in followup comments.

Comment 1

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

Example for deprecated code that needs to be replaced:

function quicktimePlugin() {
  if (navigator.plugins && navigator.plugins.length) {
    for (var i = 0; i < navigator.plugins.length; i++) {
      var plugin = navigator.plugins[i];
      if (plugin.name.indexOf("QuickTime") > -1) {
        qtInstalled = plugin;
      }
    }
  }
}

Comment 2

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

Correction:
Example for deprecated code that needs to be replaced:

function haveQuicktimePlugin() {
  if (navigator.plugins && navigator.plugins.length) {
    for (var i = 0; i < navigator.plugins.length; i++) {
      var plugin = navigator.plugins[i];
      if (plugin.name.indexOf("QuickTime") > -1) {
        return plugin;
      }
    }
  }
}

Comment 3

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

Example for good code, using mimetype query (this allows to alternative implementations):

function haveQuicktimePlugin() {
  var mimeTypes = navigator.mimeTypes;
  if (!mimeTypes) {
    return null;
  }
  var quicktime = mimeTypes["video/quicktime"];
  if (!quicktime || !quicktime.enabledPlugin) {
    return null;
  }
  return quicktime;
}

Comment 4

[[e-mail]]

Then how will the pluginscheck work?   https://www.mozilla.org/zh-CN/plugincheck/

Comment 5

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

zhoubcfan, that is bug 938885.

This bug here isn't for discussion, but to hold dependencies:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/showdependencytree.cgi?id=934107

Comment 6

[Kohei Yoshino]

Added to the site compat doc:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox/Releases/28/Site_Compatibility

Comment 7

[Henrik Skupin [:whimboo][⌚️UTC+2] (away 10/03 - 10/13)]

(In reply to Kohei Yoshino [:kohei] from comment #6)
> Added to the site compat doc:
> https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox/Releases/28/Site_Compatibility

I don't see anything which talks about the removal of the plugin enumeration on this site. Can you please check again?

Comment 8

[Chris Peterson [:cpeterson]]

(In reply to Henrik Skupin (:whimboo) from comment #7)
> (In reply to Kohei Yoshino [:kohei] from comment #6)
> > Added to the site compat doc:
> > https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox/Releases/28/Site_Compatibility
> 
> I don't see anything which talks about the removal of the plugin enumeration
> on this site. Can you please check again?

Plugin enumeration will not ship until Firefox 29. Plugin enumeration is only temporarily disabled in Beta 28 (to help find broken websites).

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox/Releases/29/Site_Compatibility

Comment 9

[Schalk Neethling [:espressive]]

The plugincheck bits for this has landed on production, see the tracker https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=990856

Comment 10

[monperrus]

Is it possible to do disable plugin enumeration through an extension?

(in the spirit of https://addons.mozilla.org/en-gb/firefox/addon/canvasblocker/ that disables canvas fingerprinting)

Comment 11

[Chris Peterson [:cpeterson]]

This evangelism bug will no longer be relevant after we drop support for all plugins (other than Flash) in Firefox 52 (bug 1269807).