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Timeline for the end of the Google Earth plugin in Chrome

November 26, 2014

Last September Google announced that they would eventually drop support for NPAPI in Chrome, a key technology behind the Google Earth plugin. Then in September this year, they released a 64-bit version of Chrome without support for NPAPI and by extension, the Google Earth plugin. However, it was still unclear exactly when support would be discontinued in the 32-bit version. We also wrote a post showing you how some sites have decided to drop the Google Earth plugin in favor of other technologies with a more certain future.

On Monday, the Chromium Blog posted a more specific timeline for the phasing out of NPAPI. See the full details here.

In summary:
From January 2015, the plugin will be blocked by default, but users will still be able to enable it.
From April 2015, it will be much harder, although still possible, to use the plugin.
From September 2015, NPAPI support will be permanently removed from Chrome and it will be impossible to use the Google Earth plugin in Chrome.

About Timothy Whitehead

Timothy has been using Google Earth since 2004 when it was still called Keyhole before it was renamed Google Earth in 2005 and has been a huge fan ever since. He is a programmer working for Red Wing Aerobatx and lives in Cape Town, South Africa.

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Filed Under: GE Plugin, Google Earth News Tagged With: Google Earth plugin

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PLEASE NOTE: Google Earth Blog is no longer writing regular posts. As a result, we are not accepting new comments or questions about Google Earth. If you have a question, use the official Google Earth and Maps Forums or the Google Earth Community Forums.

Comments

  1. bigismall says

    November 26, 2014 at 2:49 am

    I wonder if Google will produce WebGL based plugin instead of current one.
    There is a lot of good stuff based on GE Plugin (http://gefs-online.com/), with which i’m addicted.

  2. alfski says

    November 28, 2014 at 8:16 pm

    Google Earth API (and hence plugin) stopped being a focus for Google about 3 years ago. The last API Release was what, January 2012?

    It’s fairly obvious when a software company moves it’s developers & attention elsewhere. The releases start spacing out 3 months, 6 months, a year…. EOL.

    However, there are some pretty exciting projects in this space which aren’t Google-powered…

    WebGl Earth 2 – http://blog.klokantech.com/2014/07/webgl-earth-2-leaflet-compatible.html
    CesiumJS – http://cesiumjs.org/
    OpenLayers3 + CesiumJS – http://blog.klokantech.com/2014/11/ol3-cesium-third-dimension-for.html

  3. Greg says

    December 1, 2014 at 3:59 pm

    The latest release of Chrome, 39.0.2171.71 (64-bit) appears to break the Google Earth plugin.

    • Timothy Whitehead says

      December 2, 2014 at 2:28 am

      As we say in the post, the 64-bit version was released without support for the Google Earth plugin.

      http://www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2014/09/64-bit-chrome-drops-support-google-earth-plugin.html

      • Greg says

        December 3, 2014 at 3:13 pm

        Yes, and that 64-bit version was released on Dec 1st.

  4. TNT3486 says

    March 28, 2016 at 7:07 pm

    I wish they wouldn’t do away with the plugin because I don’t want NUKEMAP3D to go away. It’s fun.

    • marius katutis says

      June 3, 2017 at 5:45 am

      its gone away even in firefox ;(((( Rip

    • marius katutis says

      June 3, 2017 at 5:47 am

      the only remail working web of nukemap is 2d

    • marius katutis says

      June 30, 2017 at 5:18 am

      its gone…



PLEASE NOTE: Google Earth Blog is no longer writing regular posts. As a result, we are not accepting new comments or questions about Google Earth. If you have a question, use the official Google Earth and Maps Forums or the Google Earth Community Forums.

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