Another Microsoft plugin is taking the long walk! The company, in its bid to move into a plugins free world has announced that Silverlight will be retired, and advises everyone to stop using it.
Goes without saying that support for this plugin will not be offered in Edge.
The brand new web browser that debuts as the default solution on Windows 10 later this month.
Other browsers are also in on this approach, and in order to ensure interoperability with other competing solutions Microsoft has announced that Silverlight is no longer a reliable solution for companies that previously used it.
This
blog post details the advantages of HTML5, with the software titan admitting that while Silverlight made sense a long time ago, back when plugins were needed for rich content on the web, they are no longer mandatory today — not when alternative solutions exist.
As in:
“We encourage companies that are using Silverlight for media to begin the transition to DASH/MSE/CENC/EME based designs and to follow a single, DRM-interoperable encoding work flow enabled by CENC. This represents the most broadly interoperable solution across browsers, platforms, content and devices going forward.”
Microsoft Edge will now become one of the pioneers of this transition from Silverlight to a plugins free world, as Redmond adds:
“Now, as the old plug-in models are being removed, replacements for them are needed. For media, a great forward looking replacement can be based on DASH, MSE, EME and CENC.”
The software titan, as you may recall, already gave up on ActiveX recently.
This was a vintage technology that was used on Internet Explorer that allowed for additional website features and options. And just like Silverlight, it saw declining usage in the modern web of today, even if several websites are using ActiveX despite the obvious security risks it poses.
But Edge is a new start for Microsoft, and this move makes all the sense in the world.
source:windows10update
