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Google Removes Plugin Controls From Chrome

posted by cmn32480 on Tuesday January 31 2017, @02:31PM   Printer-friendly
from the next-they-will-kill-kenny dept.

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

Google made a change in Chrome 57 that removes options from the browser to manage plugins such as Google Widevine, Adobe Flash, or the Chrome PDF Viewer.

If you load chrome://plugins in Chrome 56 or earlier, a list of installed plugins is displayed to you. The list includes information about each plugin, including a name and description, location on the local system, version, and options to disable it or set it to "always run".

You can use it to disable plugins that you don't require. While you can do the same for some plugins, Flash and PDF Viewer, using Chrome's Settings, the same is not possible for the DRM plugin Widevine, and any other plugin Google may add to Chrome in the future.

Starting with Chrome 57, that option is no longer available. This means essentially that Chrome users won't be able to disable -- some -- plugins anymore, or even list the plugins that are installed in the web browser.

Please note that this affects Google Chrome and Chromium.

Source: http://www.ghacks.net/2017/01/29/google-removes-plugin-controls-from-chrome/

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 31 2017, @04:33PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 31 2017, @04:33PM (#461280)

    So non-free software becomes slightly more non-free..big deal. Nobody should be using it anyway.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 31 2017, @05:34PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 31 2017, @05:34PM (#461321)

    last time I checked. Chromium was FOSS, and they are also getting this treatment (as per TFS).

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 31 2017, @05:57PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 31 2017, @05:57PM (#461333)

      Ipso facto, Chromium is not Free.

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by requerdanos on Wednesday February 01 2017, @12:20AM

        by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday February 01 2017, @12:20AM (#461499) Journal

        Ipso facto, Chromium is not Free.

        All of Chromium's code is released under one free license or another [wikipedia.org], meaning once released, it can't be made non-free. Its licenses are all regarded as free by the FSF, and it's DFSG-free. Much of it is developed by Google, true, but the Google parts are BSD-licensed, and therefore free as well.

        In what sense are you saying it's non-free? Just curious; I know that the license isn't always 100% of what makes something free or not.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 01 2017, @04:17PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 01 2017, @04:17PM (#461678)

          Don't forget patents.

          • (Score: 2) by Pino P on Wednesday February 01 2017, @08:57PM

            by Pino P (4721) on Wednesday February 01 2017, @08:57PM (#461792) Journal

            Which patents apply to Chromium, apart from those related to MPEG video and audio codecs?