Since April 15, Chrome version 42, the plugins Java, Silverlight and others are blocked by default.
Google made a major change in regards to how plugins are handled by the browser. They made the decision to phase out so-called NPAPI plugins in the Chrome browser and Chromium this year. NPAPI plugins use an old plugin API from the Netscape days. Java, Silverlight and other popular technologies use this API to integrate into browsers such as Chrome or Firefox. Chrome supports a new API, called PPAPI, which is not affected by this move at all. Adobe Flash uses the new API in Chrome for example. Silverlight however, has still not been updated and needs some steps to get this to work again.
This is what you do to override the blocking of plugins in Chrome:
- Type chrome://flags in the browser’s address bar and hit enter.
- Search for chrome://flags/#enable-npapi on the page.
- Enable it with a click on the link.
- Restart the browser
All NPAPI plugins installed in Chrome become available again; You can check the installed and enabled plugins by typing chrome://plugins/ in the address bar (and hit enter).
Please note that this methods cannot be used after September 2015 when NPAPI plugins are disabled permanently in Chrome. Let’s hope Microsoft and others have updated their plugins by then.