Microsoft's Silverlight Is Now the Most Vulnerable Plugin

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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May 9, 2000
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Microsoft is number one in something again: the most vulnerable and dangerous plugin. It’s an accomplishment both Java and Flash are happy to relinquish to Microsoft.

Silverlight exploits are also ideal because Silverlight continues to gain rich Internet application market share, perhaps surpassing Java, and Microsoft's life cycle schedule suggests Silverlight 5 will be supported through October, 2021.
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Interesting. Surprised that Silverlight is gaining traction since it's been in limbo for so long though Microsoft is development a new version. I can't think of much that uses Silverlight beyond Netflix and Amazon Video these days. Many that were using SL went back to Flash.
 
I was going to say same thing, I have it installed but can't remember last time I used it .
Seems its not used much, at least on sites I go to.

think I installed it to watch some vid .
 
Why do companies think they need to break into every nitch market? I get that they have to future proof themselves, but the Xbox did a good job of that. There is absolutely no reason for them to have Silverlight except to piss people off and try to further make their OS proprietary.

I wish everything Microsoft would die except for DXxx, Xbox, and Windows...even then there are a few versions of Windows I wish would die.
 
heatlesssun said:
Interesting. Surprised that Silverlight is gaining traction since it's been in limbo for so long though Microsoft is development a new version. I can't think of much that uses Silverlight beyond Netflix and Amazon Video these days. Many that were using SL went back to Flash.
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I've used a few expensive corporate web applications that are built in silverlight. Hated it. It was an unnecessary use of SL for an app that could have been done using AJAX/HTML5.

I won't name names, but the company behind it was into the proprietary app store way of thinking. So you had to not only pay them to access it, but to also develop any changes you wanted. It was something like $2k/yr per user for what amounted to a glorified Dropbox. If you wanted other features, there were additional license fees. If you paid to develop your own app, you had rights to it as long as you kept your licenses up.

Essentially, people were paying to develop their platform for them.
 
wtiger said:
Personally I wish silverlight would die.
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This. It's bad enough that we still have flash and java around. The last thing we need is yet another plugin that some sites wont work without.

Thankfully I don't run into any sites that use Silverlight. I use Linux so I would not be able to use those sites.

ActiveX is another thing that needs to die, though, I don't recall the last time I seen that either, so maybe it did.
 
might be the reason MS is killing it completely, but in reality, I don't see alot of sites use SL though
 
heatlesssun said:
Interesting. Surprised that Silverlight is gaining traction since it's been in limbo for so long though Microsoft is development a new version. I can't think of much that uses Silverlight beyond Netflix and Amazon Video these days. Many that were using SL went back to Flash.
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Netflix is insanely popular. Doesn't matter if its gained widespread traction, all it needs is one kliller app and it will be installed. Steam's software survey was taken down, presumably for privacy reasons, but last I checked it showed Silverlight installation at over 70%. Insanely high.
 
And the shitheads at Netflix require the use of Silverlight .... so, needless to say I haven't watched anything on the PC is a long time from them.
 
Microsoft and Adobe seem to hire morons in their app development and product management groups. Silverlight and Flash.. two of the top most vulnerable applications and they are supposed to be #1 at what they do. What a load of garbage.
 
MostComfortable said:
Netflix is insanely popular. Doesn't matter if its gained widespread traction, all it needs is one kliller app and it will be installed. Steam's software survey was taken down, presumably for privacy reasons, but last I checked it showed Silverlight installation at over 70%. Insanely high.
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I only have it, as does my family because Eurosport webstreaming uses it. Otherwise it would be gone in a heart beat.
 
OEM said:
Why do companies think they need to break into every nitch market? I get that they have to future proof themselves, but the Xbox did a good job of that. There is absolutely no reason for them to have Silverlight except to piss people off and try to further make their OS proprietary.

I wish everything Microsoft would die except for DXxx, Xbox, and Windows...even then there are a few versions of Windows I wish would die.
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Because any market you do not own becomes a market that could muscle its way into your existing markets. Look at Google, they used search to bust into everything and in some markets such as the very OS market itself they have had massive success. Same with apple they were going nowhere at all until they busted into the MP3 market after that it was easy for them to sell millions of phones and eventually that started converting people into buying mac computers again.

Some people forget that MS may not even care if they win this market they may only care that they ensure that adobe flash or any other competitor cannot lock down a real good monopoly. And one could even argue they may have been successful because flash has seen a reduction in importance and use IMO since Silverlight came out.

Remember MS has a long history of dealing with this and they get scared of anything. The entire existence of MS office is due to lotus not moving to update for the latest MS OS. This was a threat to the MS business model.

Same could be said for consoles one day you could imagine a company like sony grabbing such a huge market share in consoles that they start to invade the PC market by creating incompatibility or other motivations to buy a sony PC running a Sony OS.
 
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