Plug-ins allow extra features to be added to browsers. For example, you can watch certain types of videos or play a game that’s on a web page.

NPAPI support has ended

In the past, many plugins were developed using an older system called NPAPI. Today fewer sites are using NPAPI plugins and they can sometimes cause security risks on websites.

To make browsing with Chrome safer, faster and more stable, we’re ending support for NPAPI plugins with Chrome version 42.

Which plugins are supported

Plug-ins that use a newer, more secure system called Pepper API (PPAPI) will continue to work, including those that ship with Chrome, like Adobe Flash and PDF Viewer. However, plugins that use NPAPI, including Silverlight, Java and Unity, won’t work.

How to temporarily enable NPAPI plugins

If you must use a NPAPI plugin, there’s a temporary workaround that will work until Chrome version 45 is released later in 2015:

1. Open Chrome.
2. In the address bar at the top of the screen, type chrome://flags/#enable-npapi
3. In the window that opens, click the link that says Enable under the Enable NPAPI flag: