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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-18T09:04:57+00:00

I need to create a web-controlled application (that lives in the browser ) that

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I need to create a web-controlled application (that lives in the browser) that can connect to and read data from devices connected via USB or the serial port.

At the moment, I’m using an ActiveX control to do this. However, I’m like to re-write this system to make it cross-browser (support Firefox) and eventually cross-platform (support Safari on Mac). ActiveX is neither cross-browser or cross-platform, so I’m looking for an alternative technology.

My first inclination would have been to use Silverlight, because Silverlight 4 grants access to COM Automation. Unfortunately, this only works with OOB (Out of browser) Silverlight applications – in-browser systems are still bound in a sandbox and do not have access.

So, what technologies exist (frameworks, browser plug-ins, etc) that will allow me to interface with a USB/Serial device from within a browser-based web application? What are the pros/cons of each?

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  1. Editorial Team

    The best solution I’ve come across thus far is the cross-browser/cross-platform plug-in system called FireBreath. This is a framework built in C++ that allows you to generate plug-ins for both ActiveX and NPAPI from the same codebase.

    So build it once, make it work, and it compiles to one DLL that you can deploy in either environment: ActiveX for IE, NPAPI for everyone else.

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