As web technologies have matured, there’s less of a need for browser plug-ins to add features for video playback and hardware access to the browser. That’s what Google(s goog) thinks — so too does Mozilla — and it’s the main reason that Chrome will cease to support the old Netscape Plug-In API starting on January 1, 2014.
What does that mean for the web as whole for Google’s Chrome browser going forward? Chris Albrecht and I discuss exactly that during our GigaOM Chrome Show podcast, so download the episode or listen below for our thoughts. The move fits in with the advanced features in HTML 5 so that users don’t have to download and install plug-ins for various functionality: Most of these will be built in or programmatically available to web developers.
[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/112342087″ params=”secret_token=s-qqEYz” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]
