NPAPI plugin support or similar for reading smartc

Question

Now that Chrome and FireFox (FF to a lesser but still relevant extent) are removing support for NPAPI (basically Java) and Edge (formerly Spartan won't have it, what are the alternatives?

I appreciate there is no one-size-fits all replacement and as of yet I am struggling to find something which would suffice. It will need to connect to a NFC reader attached via USB, with the ability of reading and writing to smartcards.

I have found various options such as Native Client but this is Google Specific - it would need to be cross browser.

Answer 1

FireBreath 2 will support this, since you don't need drawing support. If you're willing to get your hands dirty you could probably use it for what you need, but you'd need to be willing to help track down and fix bugs and such.

It's currently in the "refactor" branch in FireBreath's github repo, but I expect that'll change eventually.

Answer 2

In order to provide a secure connection and to support all browsers there is a solution looks like communication between browser to a native desktop app by a custom uri and from native app to Browser through web service i tried,the native app will handle the reading functionality,the implementation seems to be complex but applicable for a secure communication source

Answer 3

You could write a local REST service in any language that listens on http://localhost:[some_custom_port] that will communicate with the NFC reader.

Then you just need to write JavaScript to communicate with the REST service. This should work from any browser.

Some issues with this approach: - Each PC with a NFC reader will need to install the service before being able to communicate with the NFC reader. - Some sand-boxed browsers(such as the Metro IE) won't be able to reach localhost.