I just sent this to the Managers of both organizations.
This is a technical issue and anyone who uses Google's Chrome Browser will
encounter this problem when trying to view online videos on many sites if
they are using obsolete technology no longer supported by Chrome.
This is a major technical issue where your some local government websites
are using obsolete website "plugins" to show videos that no longer is used
by the Chrome Browser, which has more users than any other browser.
The agencies use third party applications to store and show videos of
meetings.
These do NOT work in Chrome when trying to view a video from the agency
website.
Chrome is now on version 43. As of version 42, they stopped "supporting"
NPAPI technology to show videos. NPAPI is used in Microsoft Silverlight and
Java plugins for videos
The reason is the browser industry has moved to HTML 5 and this issue has
been known for years.
Here is the Google Chrome Help Forum article on this issue
. They have links to several
other earlier articles warning about the dropping of NPAPI plugins for
Chrome.
This problem does not affect the Lake County school meeting videos since
they use YouTube to store videos, and YouTube has no problem working with
Chrome viewing of videos.
I have had continuous problems with County and now Eustis videos not working
in Chrome.
I found I always had to switch to less safe Internet Explorer as the
browser, which allows videos to show as expected, because they still use an
obsolete Microsoft proprietary plugin called Silverlight.
I finally tracked down the problem. Earlier emails sent to the County did
not result in any fixes.
In most cases, when I tried to view an online video, I got messages saying
there was a Silverlight error and to load it. After doing so, Videos still
would not work
However, it turns out that Chrome lets users to "enable" NPAPI "plugins"
back on, but they warn that NPAPI will go away in version 45 in the future.
"Which plugins are supported in Chrome
Plugins 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."
Thus your vendors are using obsolete and less secure NPAPI technology
according to Chrome support.
Here is the Chrome tech page that explains why users with the default Chrome
browser cannot see your online videos
This page explains that NPAPI plugins don't work on Chrome
version 42 and higher
https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/6213033
"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."
However, I found that Chrome provided a workaround so Chrome users can use
NPAPI for obsolete websites like yours - enter this "page" address in your
chrome browser, and there is a link to re-enable NPAPI in Chrome
chrome://flags/#enable-npapi
Once you set this to enable npapi and then close and reload
Chrome, it should allow videos to work in Chrome.
However, even after doing the above, I tried to view a video on the City of
Eustis website and got this result:
Notice the small logo where the video should appear. It says "Silverlight
needs your permission to run" but provides no details how to "give
permission". NOTHING on the Eustis website or on that screen tells the
viewer that they need to do a right click, then click "run this plugin" to
run the video.
The credibility of both the County and Eustis websites is being affected by
this. Don't blame it on the user. Your IT departments and video display
providers should have known about this for years, and ensured that Chrome
users can see your videos without the use of obsolete NPAPI plugins.
By the way, the County should look at the software that Eustis uses for
agendas, videos etc. It is much easier to understand how to use than the
software used by the County.
I hope you get IT and your webmaster to implement solutions that allow
videos to be seen by Chrome users as expected. Demand that your third part
video display providers upgrade their systems to work seamlessly with
Chrome.
Vance Jochim
Former information systems auditor and software developer (one of many
"hats")
