Moving toward Web standards reduces the inconvenience and security problems of browser plugins. But the new Hangouts software still uses Google's own Native Client plugin. A decade ago, much of the ...

Why it matters: Google is suggesting changes to Chrome APIs that will change what plugins can be installed and run. Security software and ad blockers will be drastically reduced in effectiveness or ...

Once upon a time I was working with a Windows user concerned about security. My first suggestion was to block Flash from running automatically in his Chrome browser. As documented on my ...

Changing Web usage is hard. Google has granted a few extra months of leeway to those who rely on a handful of popular plug-ins, such as Silverlight, to extend what their browser can do. Instead of ...