The NPAPI is being phased out by Chrome. What are the alternatives for writing NPAPI like browser plugins with cross browser support? I need to write a browser plugin which could talk to desktop based installed application. My environment is such that I have a desktop application and a web version of the same. The two need to communicate. My requirement is little more than just messaging. I need to first ascertain if the desktop application is installed. I do this by looking to windows registry for its installation information, if it is installed, I talk to the application and exchange messages.
Answer
There's no single drop-in replacement for every possible NPAPI plugin (by design, since the same things that made NPAPI capable of doing everything made it insecure and non-portable), and nothing cross-browser except the web platform itself.
You should look at the deprecation guide's list of pointers; given that what you want to do is communicate with an application, Native Messaging is probably what you want.