Re: Plugins are actually the symptom, not the root problem
>The question is, why did people even get the idea of using plugins?
It seems that Adobe (before they acquired Flash etc with Macromedia) wanted Netscape Navigator to render PDF files directly. Netscape proposed building PDF support into Navigator, but Adobe suggested that Netscape develop a system for supporting plugins, as Adobe themselves had done for Adobe Reader.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPAPI#History
Biting the hand that feeds IT
