Silverlight

So when I click on the Flip4Mac highlight in Chas's site it directs me to a Microsoft page that says to click to download Silverlight. Is that what I want to download?

Silverlight is a different product, try this link
Download Flip4Mac WMV Player for Mac - Play Windows Media in QuickTime Player. MacUpdate.com

Flip4Mac WMV Player for Mac is in fact licensed by Microsoft under the name Microsoft Components for QuickTime (or something like that) and will by default install a Silverlight plug-in unless you customise the install and tell it not to do that.

I don't see any harm from having the Silverlight install on the off-chance (very off-chance) you run across a web site that relies on it, but I don't like backdoor software so I refuse to install it. YMMV.

I'm not sure but I think Silverlight also gets installed when installing MS Office 2011. I just checked and yes it does get installed under "Additional Tools" as a sub folder to the MS Office main folder.

Neither can you install the Sky Go App without installing Silverlight. I held off installing Sky Go for 12 months because of bad reports against Silverlight.

I recently relented and the App crashes regularly when watching movies.

Netflix also depends on Silverlight. Ultimately, you may never encounter it (Flash is much more pervasive) but it can't hurt to have.

I use Silverlight without any problems.

ursus262 said:

I use Silverlight without any problems.

Click to expand...

Ditto. The few sites I've visited that require Silverlight have shown no issues whatsoever.

^ Silverlight crashes rather often (which is to say at least once per day) on Netflix. But, then again, my wife and I use Netflix heavily as it's our primary television service, so probably we're exposed to problems more frequently.

Z

Thanks

Thanks to all for the information. I downloaded Flip4Mac, did not install Silverlight and all is well.

Sorry guys, but I'm a little confused. Why would flip4mac be a replacement for Silverlight? Am I correct in assuming that Silverlight, then, is an implementation of WMV?

Flip4Mac and Silverlight are not the same although both are by Microsoft.

(Click on the links above.)

ursus262 said:

Sorry guys, but I'm a little confused. Why would flip4mac be a replacement for Silverlight? Am I correct in assuming that Silverlight, then, is an implementation of WMV?

Click to expand...

They're not the same. Flip4Mac adds WMV support to QuickTime while Silverlight is Microsoft's rich content platform that performs similar functions to Flash (think of it as Microsoft's Flash).