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Microsoft has Abandoned Silverlight and All Other Plugins

265 points by bleakgadfly 15y ago

michaelpinto 15y ago
Is this true? From the article: "The Metro-style browser in Windows 8 does not support plugins: This means no Flash, no QuickTime, no PDF readers, and no Silverlight. The companies that use Flash or Silverlight to augment their websites are going to have the most trouble. Since they cannot simply port their code to Metro they will need to need go rewrite the components from scratch using HTML and JavaScript."
- edandersen 15y ago
  At least in the current Developer Preview, yes. No plugins in Metro IE10.
- barista 15y ago
  Being a pre-beta version this could be a limitation of this build. But nevertheless, Steve jobs has already talked about the problem with flash performance/power consumption.
  - HardyLeung 15y ago
    This is NOT a build specific limitation. This is a decision already made (of course can be reversed). See this: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/09/14/metro-style-browsing-and-plug-in-free-html5.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/09/14/metro-style-br... "For the web to move forward and for consumers to get the most out of touch-first browsing, the Metro style browser in Windows 8 is as HTML5-only as possible, and plug-in free. The experience that plug-ins provide today is not a good match with Metro style browsing and the modern HTML5 web. Running Metro style IE plug-in free improves battery life as well as security, reliability, and privacy for consumers. Plug-ins were important early on in the web’s history. But the web has come a long way since then with HTML5. Providing compatibility with legacy plug-in technologies would detract from, rather than improve, the consumer experience of browsing in the Metro style UI."
    - edoloughlin 15y ago
      > Plug-ins were important early on in the web’s history. But the web has come a long way since then with HTML5. Can you tell me how I record video or audio using HTML5 only? Even playing more than a single audio sample and getting them to sync is a challenge.
      - HardyLeung 15y ago
        I agree with you. I simply quoted Dean H.
      - richbradshaw 15y ago
        You could have used the device tag until 3 days ago when it was deprecated in favour of the media capture api: http://www.w3.org/TR/html-media-capture/ http://www.w3.org/TR/html-media-capture/ It's not implemented anywhere yet, but it is part of the spec.
        edoloughlin 15y ago
        Fantastic. I look forward to using it in 5 years :)
  - watty 15y ago
    Adding more animations decreases battery life - this is a no-brainer. The problem is that Flash is everywhere, so enabling Flash will decrease battery life. If you replaced all online animations with the current state HTML5, your battery life would be EVEN WORSE. Yes, Flash still outperforms HTML5 so please stop using that argument. http://www.craftymind.com/guimark3/ http://www.craftymind.com/guimark3/
- dangrossman 15y ago
  IE10 will have two UIs, Metro-style and Desktop-style. There's a button, "Use Desktop View", to switch into the Windows 7-esque window where plugins still live. Same rendering engine in both views, just different UI.
cageface 15y ago
But today, right now, HTML5 is not appropriate for the immersive applications that Flash and Silverlight are capable of creating. You could argue that Flash and Silverlight were never particularly appropriate either. Cue native apps...
- mahmud 15y ago
  Between Flash/Silverlight and native is Java. With Java7, you get GPU accelerated multimedia, "applets" not restricted to the browser, point & click deployment with Upstart .. Very few people are doing client-side java these days, but those are making some rich, immersive experiences, across platforms, and with push deployment. Having said that, client-side java is hard; No "authoring" tools, all UI & visualization is made by programmers .. not exactly the most discerning of aesthetes ;-)
  - HardyLeung 15y ago
    I am possibly very biased about this. My opinion is that Silverlight is strictly superior to Java as a CLIENT-SIDE technology in terms of speed (runtime and startup time), memory, penetration (see http://riastats.com http://riastats.com), supporting and tooling, language support, feature set (GPU, out-of-browser, etc), and deployment. If SL and Flash cannot survive, client-side Java browser plugin has no chance.
    - mahmud 15y ago
      To be honest, when I got a technology budget a few months ago, I put my boss' money on Android and HTML4, not flash, silverlight or java applets. So ..
neworbit 15y ago
That's a bit baffling. It seems like there are at least tens and probably hundreds of millions of people who play flash games every day (Zynga being rather happy about that). They may not be power users but they are everyday consumers. A lot of that isn't going to be casually rewritten into HTML/JS.
- deleted 15y ago
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  - deleted 15y ago
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- dangrossman 15y ago
  Those people will quickly learn to use the "Use Desktop View" button where their plugins still live.
  - justincormack 15y ago
    Unless they are on an ARM tablet in which case there is no option.
    - mappu 15y ago
      There have been several videos showing the classic interface on ARM tablets.
      - justincormack 15y ago
        Hmm, there have also been statements that the classic Windows APIs are not going to ship on ARM. My guess is that it is possible, but it wont ship as they wont be able to support legacy software anyway, as there is no instruction set emulation. Guessing though, as I cant find a clear source...
        15y ago
buff-a 15y ago
No Google Chrome-in-IE either then. I should probably be paying attention to this, but is Metro HTML5/js only? Does that mean Chrome and Firefox are basically dead on Windows 8 (unless you leave Metro)? And what about anti-trust lawsuits against IE??
- simonw 15y ago
  No, Metro stuff can be written in C++/C#/etc - it's just a different set of APIs to target. As I understand it, Chrome/Firefox would have to be ported to run on the new Windows Runtime. I have no idea how difficult that would be.
  - jbk 15y ago
    I have had a quick look at it, in order to port different applications. It is doable for complex application, but is a lot of work, especially for rendering and GPU acceleration.
    - lubos 15y ago
      If your application relies on MFC, Webforms etc, then yes... it would be a lot of work to port it over to Metro UI but this is not the case for web-browsers where 99% code is already cross-platform and completely independent of GUI. So for web-browser, this is not a matter of "porting". It's a matter of adding new "chrome" for WinRT.
      - jbk 15y ago
        No, even the file and devices access are different. Direct3D, DxVA, Waveout are different too. Even without MFC or Webform, there is quite some work to do.
buff-a 15y ago
Microsoft abandons silverlight, Sony announces Playstation Suite SDK written in C#. This is topsy-turvy day. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2999086 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2999086
0x12 15y ago
The title is nonsense, here is the microsoft blog post: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/09/14/metro-style-browsing-and-plug-in-free-html5.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/09/14/metro-style-br...
- chico_dusty 15y ago
  It's not really nonsense at all. Limiting plugins to the legacy UI no one wants to use on a tablet is pretty much abandoning them.
- davedx 15y ago
  Sensationalist maybe, but nonsense? It seems clear Microsoft is moving towards a plugin-free user experience.
  - est 15y ago
    User experience aside, plug-free really means developer experience sucks. Now everyone has to wait for some sucky organization called w3c to invent ideas, and company called Microsoft or Apple or Google to implement them. You know how new technology should emerge? Thirdparty push them, not providers allow them.
    - sid0 15y ago
      That is a very dishonest representation of how the Web standardization process works.
      - slowpoke 15y ago
        He does have a point with the third parties though. Software ecosystems controlled by a single (in most cases proprietary) entity are bad.
      - Silhouette 15y ago
        The trouble is, right now we don't really have a web stanardisation process. We've got HTML5 and CSS3 in the works, of course, but the reality is that we're in the middle of Microsoft vs. Netscape, all over again. If you want to use CSS3 tools, even those that are widely supported across browsers, you often have to code up the same effect 3/4/5 times with slightly different syntaxes. If you want to use HTML5 elements, even just the simple semantic ones, you need to incorporate backward compatibility fixes for IE before version 9 (which is a very substantial chunk of the browsing public, since WinXP only goes up to IE8). If you want to use the more interactive HTML5 elements, it's even worse. HTML5 video won't be a credible successor to Flash video until there is a standardised, high quality a/v format that all browsers support. Even then, the simple fact is that Flash video players offer way more powerful customisation and some features involving content streaming and protection that are still commercially relevant even if the "everything should be free" crowd want to bury their heads in the sand. We have SVG and HTML5 Canvas technology to do drawing without relying on plug-ins these days, except that when you actually try to use them, you find that they aren't always supported to the same extent on all popular browsers, particularly the mobile ones where avoiding the weight of downloading a plug-in seems most advantageous of all. Did I mention web fonts? (Not that it matters until the on-demand font services realise they aren't special and most of us are never going to rent a font instead of paying one-time fees like we do for stock images, blog templates, etc. Or until the rendering on some platforms means most of the fonts actually available don't like the rear end of an animal with stomach problems. But hopefully those issues will pass, at which point having a common font format would be handy too.) All the while, Mozilla and Google are having a pissing match to see who can release some bleeding edge thing faster than the other, but since no-one else supports it the same way yet, it's basically worthless. Meanwhile, they keep pushing releases every few weeks, and they do break things, often those very HTML5 and CSS3 features we're all meant to love that are supposedly driving web technology development. (Google screwed up rounded corners for several successive versions. Firefox still doesn't get basic font rendering right on a lot of platforms, and the current version can't even look up locally installed fonts properly. Don't even start trying to do tricky things like using Java applets -- and before anyone chimes in about obsolete technologies, remember that there was a big push to improve support for applets not so long ago, and that many state-of-the-art programming languages run on the JVM.) The recurring theme in all of this, of course, is that you can't write one thing that runs reliably everywhere today. Until you can, any so-called standards will just be marketing propaganda for one browser team or another.
agravier 15y ago
A side note: the typos, misspelling, tortured wording and grammatical errors make this article particularly painful to read. I first thought that it's an automatic translation. If you are a tech writer, take a minimum care of these things, and you will attract readers instead of repelling them.
- EastSmith 15y ago
  Agree. Whenever there is a new post on B8 blog I go straight to Techmeme to get "translated" version of it.
teyc 15y ago
Microsoft has been losing its Windows franchise since two key events: 1. Netscape introducing navigator 2. Microsoft stopping development post IE6 This has actually given the web browsers a modicum of stability and people were able to develop against a stable medium, and allowed Firefox to catch up in terms of compatibility. In order to regain its Windows franchise, it needs to reimpose the Windows tax. Firstly, by making Metro IE10 plugin-less, it kills Adobe Flash as a navigator-pretender. Secondly, by introducing a lot of IE10 specific extensions, it hopes that developers will start to make use of these, eventually leading to the balkanization of the web, with MS having the highest share of desktops, it hopes it can buy another 20 years of windows tax. Thirdly, Apple's experience has shown that without plugins, developers will either have to choose between HTML or Apps. Now Apps are a great way to create lock in. The existence of plugins threatens that.
- HardyLeung 15y ago
  I see the current move more of a defensive move (vs. Apple/Google) than an offensive one (vs. Adobe). Microsoft did not and will not need to kill Adobe's Flash. Steve Jobs already did.
  - Silhouette 15y ago
    > Microsoft did not and will not need to kill Adobe's Flash. Steve Jobs already did. The jury is very much still out on that one. Plenty of web sites are still Flash-based at least in part, and big companies are still throwing serious money behind them, and this is several generations of iDevice-without-Flash later. Meanwhile, subjectively it seems like the number of complaints from people using iDevices when they can't use a site for this reason has been growing a little, at least on the forums I follow. The difficulty for Flash, though, isn't just that it has the issues that come with being a plug-in. It also has the issues that come with its development environment and underlying programming language, which have many of the same strengths and weaknesses as other tools these days, so there is nothing you need Flash to do any more. I doubt Apple can kill Flash alone, but a combination of HTML5, JavaScript, better distribution systems for native executables, new JVM languages running as applets, and any number of other technologies might well do it in the longer term. I imagine Adobe are well aware of this, as they have been promoting a lot of alternative (and potentially much better) approaches to their traditionally Flash-owned territory lately.
robinhouston 15y ago
Putting the focus on Silverlight is an oddly parochial angle, when Silverlight has so little significance in comparison with Flash. This move is far more interesting, surely, as confirmation that Flash has lost the browser wars and that web standards will determine the future of web applications. If you make a living as a Flash developer, it's long past time to start learning about the web.
- HardyLeung 15y ago
  Years ago the web was not powerful enough, hence Macromedia/Adobe Flash. Adobe got complacent, thought it was the king of the world. Then Microsoft joined the RIA fray with Silverlight, battling for control of the web. Flash was everywhere, SL up-and-coming. It was meant to be a spectacular battle, but both companies were blind-sided by this little web standard thing which was about to crash the party... Except that it didn't. The war didn't end because someone won, but because Steve Jobs said so. It was only an illusion that HTML5 renders the RIA plugins irrelevant. In reality, it was the emergence of native apps. First iPhone, then Android, iPad, and now even Windows/Metro. Who cares about rich cross-browser apps? So instead of developing a rich application that runs on all platforms, you either use HTML5/Javascript (if your application is not as hard), or implement the same thing on 3 platforms with 3 different languages on using 3 different toolsets. Wanna do something very rich/powerful cross-browser? Forget it! Everybody happy now?
  - watty 15y ago
    I think you hit the nail on the head - something very few people understand. I don't doubt that HTML5 will eventually catch up to the functionality of Flash... in 10 years or so. Until then? Native Apps and hacks to make basic layout and animations work cross browser. Adobe failed hard as well, they couldn't produce a non-buggy plugin for all operating systems and mobile devices. Had they done this, I don't think SJ could have refused it access to the app store.
  - loso 15y ago
    And this is the truth. No matter how much people want it to be the HTML5/JS/CSS3 combination is not on the same level as Flash right now. Plugins are a pain but it feels like we are moving sideways and not up. I use to be a web standards fan but in recent years not as much.I guess the grass is always greener....
smilliken 15y ago
Title should be: IE10 preview doesn't support plugins. Silverlight still exists in desktop mode IE10, and every other OS/browser configuration that's currently supported, plus windows phone, xbox, and desktop silverlight apps. (Though it would be nice if IE10 continues to not support plugins-- that would seriously accelerate the push to native web development).
- josscrowcroft 15y ago
  Agree 100% (can anyone change the title?) I was a little disappointed - the title had me all excited, like "Ooh, IE10 is going to be amazi ... oh wait." Still, it does look really cool, I for one am excited. I'm not switching from Chrome, though.
- HardyLeung 15y ago
  You mean accelerate the push to native APP development, where anything nontrivial requires the development of the same program in 3 different platforms (iOS, Android, Windows/Metro).
- josteink 15y ago
  I thought Windows Phone 7 didn't support Silverligth in the browser and that is was only intended for application (you know, App) development. Please do correct me if this has changed and I am wrong.
  - HardyLeung 15y ago
    You are correct. Web-based Silverlight application does not run on WP7. You can (rather easily in some cases) develop a WP7 app with the same codebase as a Silverlight app though.
radimd 15y ago
Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is nuts with the whole Metro UI on a PC thing? I mean it may be a good UI for tablets, but I did not buy two 24" widescreen monitors to run IE in fullscreen. When I use my PC I don't care about active tiles or what's the desktop at all. I have apps to run and work to do. And I am not about to replace my mouse & keyboard with touchscreen on the desktop anytime soon (if ever). Simply put tablets and PCs are not the same thing and are not used in for the same purpose. They need different GUIs.
- sid0 15y ago
  You are definitely not. I use Windows 7 primarily and I'd never even dream of replacing it with Windows 8 in its current state as a horribly thought-out mishmash of design principles.
  - josteink 15y ago
    So let me start this one off by saying "developers! developers! developers!" This isn't Windows 8 RTM, this is Windows (7-to-become-8) Developer Preview where they show off where they are heading, give you a chance to get a feel for it, get a feel for the design-language Microsoft is putting out here and allow you to adapt your applications to this new format. Because this is really such a new format, you need to play with it to get it. So yes, this is very incomplete. In it's current state it is not intended as a production OS to replace Windows 7 either. It's a developer preview. It's supposed to bring developers up to speed on the Windows 8 platform and how you build for it. Lots of people are treating this as a beta, almost like an RTM, and I honestly think people doing that is missing the point entirely.
    - sid0 15y ago
      I'm not taking the bugs into account here (though there are plenty). I'm talking about the design philosophy.
- narag 15y ago
  Microsoft simply can't throw out their native program base. When .NET was released, they promoted the idea that it was going to be the Windows API in the long run. But most commercial applications (including Microsoft's) are still written for the native API. While .NET was a success for custom applications. I expect pretty much the same from Metro. It will be adopted for certain uses: small and touch devices. For the rest I doubt it'll get in the way. I believe Microsoft is trying to atrract developers to the new interface, but "native Windows" is there to stay.
Tichy 15y ago
Hm, plugins have other uses than just displaying legacy data formats. I want to be able to enhance the web sites I regularly visit. OK, and filter ads while I am at it.
- mcbarry 15y ago
  This is referring to runtime environments like Flash and Silverlight, not browser extensions like Adblock.
  - Tichy 15y ago
    The original MS blog article that somebody linked seems to say "no plugins", though. No Flash and no Silverlight is just a corollary of that. If they allow extensions, how would they prevent Flash?
    - frou_dh 15y ago
      Presumably the extension API would be quite limited.
chico_dusty 15y ago
Do y'all think the people who decried a lack of flash in iOS will recant now?
neilk 15y ago
A question for those of you who work with Microsoft frameworks. Why do you believe in any technology that MS gives you? How is it these people have any credibility left? Their technologies are invariably doomed to obsolesence within about 2-3 years of their introduction. Those that the web doesn't make obsolete are eventually thrown under the bus by Microsoft themselves in about the same time frame.
- pcj 15y ago
  Silverlight was released in 2007 and as rumored lets say Windows 8 probably comes around next year or so - it still managed to provide an alternative to flash for all these years (at least for certain kinds of RIA). If HTML5 becomes a standard, isn't that a good thing that Microsoft is supporting it completely? Besides that, folks can continue to leverage their XAML (for UI) and C#/VB skills for building even new Metro style apps.
- three14 15y ago
  But they do keep your software running on newer versions of Windows years after Windows has moved on, so long as you kept to the API as documented. Also, it's hard to say that Apple or desktop Linux is fundamentally different, except that the schedule of changing everything might be slightly longer.
  - gaius 15y ago
    Let's see what Linus himself has to say about desktop Linux: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/08/05/linus_slams_gnome_three/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/08/05/linus_slams_gnome_th...
    - rbanffy 15y ago
      I agree Gnome Shell is less than perfect, but, hey, I can still use Gnome 2 if I want. More to the point, he can use it.
- namdnay 15y ago
  The Windows SDK begs to differ
StrawberryFrog 15y ago
If Microsoft is all-in on JavaScript on the web and desktop, I guess that Google will have a very hard time convincing them to switch to Dart instead.
tcarnell 15y ago
It wasn't necesarily a bad idea to compete with Flash, but SilverLight was about 10 years too late and offered no reason for the entire world to switch from Flash. Thus, the end of SilverLight was just a question of 'when', not 'if'.
gavanwoolery 15y ago
I am glad that they are ditching all of the pluggins, but sad that they are settling on javascript as their primary language. I know that the Hacker News community is very pro-javascript for the most part, so I expect to be down-voted. But at the very least, I think javascript could benefit from more competition. I remember when Microsoft was the company that made standards, now they seem be playing catch-up with the rest of the industry. What I really would have loved to see them do is completely reinvent the browser from the ground up. Support javascript and html 5 as "legacy" but create a new, effective, and fast language for applications and rendering. Web browsers are still stuck in document mode. We don't see anything wrong with this, but links and back buttons are not the best way to control application state. We have moved beyond documents and primarily create applications these days (even if they are document-hosting applications like blogs). Imagine if Photoshop was controlled using links and back buttons. I know that javascript is capable of more advanced, realtime techniques, but most websites are stilled laid out in the page by page format these days. On top of it all, even V8 javascript still runs 10-20x slower than C.
- mattmanser 15y ago
  The choice is javascript and Html OR .Net and Xaml, not just javascript. While the plugin is dead, the stack is not. I remember when C#/VB.Net first start competing head to head and it quickly became apparent that C# had won even though there were originally more VB devs. It's far from decided yet. MS's usual javascript style is actually fairly odd and irritating compared to what we're all used to, so I wouldn't be surprised if people avoid it. They also have been pushing a bit of an odd way of attempting to get intellisense support on js. Even the code examples coming out of MS shouldn't be noted, they used to pump out a lot of VB.Net examples when everyone else was using C#, which wasn't too bad as you could convert them fairly easily. The more I think about this, the more it looks like it's going to be a messy fight. If you want to see what's winning, watch the questions on StackOverflow. BTW, they've also created a lot of vendor specific CSS extensions including a grid, so they are attempting to get out of document mode and move html forward. I know your gripe though, always irritated me too.
  - noamsml 15y ago
rodh257 15y ago
The headline is sensationalist and wrong. Think of it this way, Metro is their tablet/iPad mode. The iPad has no flash/silverlight in the browser, and neither does Metro IE. This in order to get the best tablet experience, battery life etc. The difference is, you can hit a button and open up full Windows desktop mode and get the full browsing experience, while accepting a tradeoff in battery life. They aren't abandoning it, they're just optimizing for the use case. In fact, Silverlight developers should be happy - with some simple namespace changes, they demonstrated converting a silverlight program to a Metro UI on stage in the keynote. Sure your program may not run in the browser unless they swap to full desktop mode, but it will be easy for you to make it a proper installed application if you desire. It's a good decision in my book, and will result in a better tablet experience. Frankly all the misinformation and hyperbole around this is getting exhausting. They've really not pulled the rug from under anyone at all.
- blahedo 15y ago
  > Think of it this way, Metro is their tablet/iPad mode. That's not what the article says: "The Metro-style browser is the full screen, chromeless implementation of Internet Explorer that most people are expected to use with Windows 8." I have also read this elsewhere. Do you have a cite to back up your claim that Metro is tablet-only?
  - brodney 15y ago
    I read the tablet comment to mean that it was a reduced functionality version, not that it would be tablet only.
- illumin8 15y ago
  It's funny how when Apple did this with the iPad the cries of "no flash!" were deafening. Now "it is a good decision."
  - Giometrix 15y ago
    Apple doesn't allow plugins in their web browser. Microsoft is not allowing plugins in Metro. Flash on the web has existed for years, and not having plugins hurts end users because they experience the entire web. No plugins for something that doesn't exist yet hurts no one, because apps will be designed from the ground up without plugins. See the difference?
nextparadigms 15y ago
But if they are giving up Flash....does that mean they will start using WebM in IE10?
jmilloy 15y ago
The author's claim seems to be simply false; his post explicitly says (quoting Sinofsky): "In Windows 8, IE 10 is available as a Metro style app and as a desktop app. The desktop app continues to fully support all plug-ins and extensions." (emphasis mine)
melling 15y ago
Steve Jobs once said that Apple and Microsoft are 100% of the PC market and if they agree on something it becomes a standard. These days we need to consider Google too. Anyway, it looks like HTML5 just became the "official" standard.
melling 15y ago
Is Metro UI only for tablets? I was under the impression that was going to be the default desktop UI too. In what mode will desktop IE run by default?
kaylarose 15y ago
Is Netflix in-browser streaming still dependent on Silverlight?
jslatts 15y ago
All this consternation and speculation (and general negativeness) about a completely alpha stage product is why Apple does not show their products (much) before release. Think about it. Now if you are Microsoft, you have to decide whether your vision is good or if you should "listen" to what the market is telling you and shift your strategy. Glad I don't have to make that decision.
- nkassis 15y ago
  They sure are getting a crapload of publicity out of this. I much prefer them talking about it early than to late. If it's really bad ideas at least they can adjust before finalizing win8.
- jannes 15y ago
  Apple doesn't show their hardware products much before release. With their operating systems it's different. Remember, iOS 5 was announced a few months ago and still isn't released yet.
imurray 15y ago
It would be nice if Microsoft provided a non-silverlight interface to the Feynman lectures that they have the rights to: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/escience/archive/2009/07/15/project-tuva-richard-feynman-is-now-available-to-all.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/escience/archive/2009/07/15/project-...
iam 15y ago
Even if Metro does not allow Silverlight plugins, it is still using WinRT, which is using XAML UIs and more importantly developers can use C# to write apps against it. So the knowledge isn't entirely lost, it's just transferred.
runjake 15y ago
It should be noted before the usual MS flames roll in that Silverlight is an umbrella product name for the underlying technologies. The same underlying technologies that encompass WPF and Metro. You'll still be using the same XAML/C#/etc
Apocryphon 15y ago
How much money did Microsoft sink into Silverlight?
Hominem 15y ago
I have invested a lot of time into sivlerlight app. I think the best possible outcome is that Windows 8 Metro will support silverlight natively and silverlight apps will be sold in the app store. I always thought of silverlight as a stalking horse to get people hooked on XAML and C# anyway.

265 points by bleakgadfly 15y ago

Is this true? From the article: "The Metro-style browser in Windows 8 does not support plugins: This means no Flash, no QuickTime, no PDF readers, and no Silverlight. The companies that use Flash or Silverlight to augment their websites are going to have the most trouble. Since they cannot simply port their code to Metro they will need to need go rewrite the components from scratch using HTML and JavaScript."

edandersen 15y ago
At least in the current Developer Preview, yes. No plugins in Metro IE10.
barista 15y ago
Being a pre-beta version this could be a limitation of this build. But nevertheless, Steve jobs has already talked about the problem with flash performance/power consumption.
- HardyLeung 15y ago
  This is NOT a build specific limitation. This is a decision already made (of course can be reversed). See this: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/09/14/metro-style-browsing-and-plug-in-free-html5.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/09/14/metro-style-br... "For the web to move forward and for consumers to get the most out of touch-first browsing, the Metro style browser in Windows 8 is as HTML5-only as possible, and plug-in free. The experience that plug-ins provide today is not a good match with Metro style browsing and the modern HTML5 web. Running Metro style IE plug-in free improves battery life as well as security, reliability, and privacy for consumers. Plug-ins were important early on in the web’s history. But the web has come a long way since then with HTML5. Providing compatibility with legacy plug-in technologies would detract from, rather than improve, the consumer experience of browsing in the Metro style UI."
  - edoloughlin 15y ago
    > Plug-ins were important early on in the web’s history. But the web has come a long way since then with HTML5. Can you tell me how I record video or audio using HTML5 only? Even playing more than a single audio sample and getting them to sync is a challenge.
    - HardyLeung 15y ago
      I agree with you. I simply quoted Dean H.
    - richbradshaw 15y ago
      You could have used the device tag until 3 days ago when it was deprecated in favour of the media capture api: http://www.w3.org/TR/html-media-capture/ http://www.w3.org/TR/html-media-capture/ It's not implemented anywhere yet, but it is part of the spec.
      - edoloughlin 15y ago
        Fantastic. I look forward to using it in 5 years :)
- watty 15y ago
  Adding more animations decreases battery life - this is a no-brainer. The problem is that Flash is everywhere, so enabling Flash will decrease battery life. If you replaced all online animations with the current state HTML5, your battery life would be EVEN WORSE. Yes, Flash still outperforms HTML5 so please stop using that argument. http://www.craftymind.com/guimark3/ http://www.craftymind.com/guimark3/
dangrossman 15y ago
IE10 will have two UIs, Metro-style and Desktop-style. There's a button, "Use Desktop View", to switch into the Windows 7-esque window where plugins still live. Same rendering engine in both views, just different UI.

cageface 15y ago

But today, right now, HTML5 is not appropriate for the immersive applications that Flash and Silverlight are capable of creating. You could argue that Flash and Silverlight were never particularly appropriate either. Cue native apps...

mahmud 15y ago
Between Flash/Silverlight and native is Java. With Java7, you get GPU accelerated multimedia, "applets" not restricted to the browser, point & click deployment with Upstart .. Very few people are doing client-side java these days, but those are making some rich, immersive experiences, across platforms, and with push deployment. Having said that, client-side java is hard; No "authoring" tools, all UI & visualization is made by programmers .. not exactly the most discerning of aesthetes ;-)
- HardyLeung 15y ago
  I am possibly very biased about this. My opinion is that Silverlight is strictly superior to Java as a CLIENT-SIDE technology in terms of speed (runtime and startup time), memory, penetration (see http://riastats.com http://riastats.com), supporting and tooling, language support, feature set (GPU, out-of-browser, etc), and deployment. If SL and Flash cannot survive, client-side Java browser plugin has no chance.
  - mahmud 15y ago
    To be honest, when I got a technology budget a few months ago, I put my boss' money on Android and HTML4, not flash, silverlight or java applets. So ..

neworbit 15y ago

That's a bit baffling. It seems like there are at least tens and probably hundreds of millions of people who play flash games every day (Zynga being rather happy about that). They may not be power users but they are everyday consumers. A lot of that isn't going to be casually rewritten into HTML/JS.

deleted 15y ago
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dangrossman 15y ago
Those people will quickly learn to use the "Use Desktop View" button where their plugins still live.
- justincormack 15y ago
  Unless they are on an ARM tablet in which case there is no option.
  - mappu 15y ago
    There have been several videos showing the classic interface on ARM tablets.
    - justincormack 15y ago
      Hmm, there have also been statements that the classic Windows APIs are not going to ship on ARM. My guess is that it is possible, but it wont ship as they wont be able to support legacy software anyway, as there is no instruction set emulation. Guessing though, as I cant find a clear source...
      - 15y ago

buff-a 15y ago

No Google Chrome-in-IE either then. I should probably be paying attention to this, but is Metro HTML5/js only? Does that mean Chrome and Firefox are basically dead on Windows 8 (unless you leave Metro)? And what about anti-trust lawsuits against IE??

simonw 15y ago
No, Metro stuff can be written in C++/C#/etc - it's just a different set of APIs to target. As I understand it, Chrome/Firefox would have to be ported to run on the new Windows Runtime. I have no idea how difficult that would be.
- jbk 15y ago
  I have had a quick look at it, in order to port different applications. It is doable for complex application, but is a lot of work, especially for rendering and GPU acceleration.
  - lubos 15y ago
    If your application relies on MFC, Webforms etc, then yes... it would be a lot of work to port it over to Metro UI but this is not the case for web-browsers where 99% code is already cross-platform and completely independent of GUI. So for web-browser, this is not a matter of "porting". It's a matter of adding new "chrome" for WinRT.
    - jbk 15y ago
      No, even the file and devices access are different. Direct3D, DxVA, Waveout are different too. Even without MFC or Webform, there is quite some work to do.

buff-a 15y ago

Microsoft abandons silverlight, Sony announces Playstation Suite SDK written in C#. This is topsy-turvy day. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2999086 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2999086

0x12 15y ago

The title is nonsense, here is the microsoft blog post: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/09/14/metro-style-browsing-and-plug-in-free-html5.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/09/14/metro-style-br...

chico_dusty 15y ago
It's not really nonsense at all. Limiting plugins to the legacy UI no one wants to use on a tablet is pretty much abandoning them.
davedx 15y ago
Sensationalist maybe, but nonsense? It seems clear Microsoft is moving towards a plugin-free user experience.
- est 15y ago
  User experience aside, plug-free really means developer experience sucks. Now everyone has to wait for some sucky organization called w3c to invent ideas, and company called Microsoft or Apple or Google to implement them. You know how new technology should emerge? Thirdparty push them, not providers allow them.
  - sid0 15y ago
    That is a very dishonest representation of how the Web standardization process works.
    - slowpoke 15y ago
      He does have a point with the third parties though. Software ecosystems controlled by a single (in most cases proprietary) entity are bad.
    - Silhouette 15y ago
      The trouble is, right now we don't really have a web stanardisation process. We've got HTML5 and CSS3 in the works, of course, but the reality is that we're in the middle of Microsoft vs. Netscape, all over again. If you want to use CSS3 tools, even those that are widely supported across browsers, you often have to code up the same effect 3/4/5 times with slightly different syntaxes. If you want to use HTML5 elements, even just the simple semantic ones, you need to incorporate backward compatibility fixes for IE before version 9 (which is a very substantial chunk of the browsing public, since WinXP only goes up to IE8). If you want to use the more interactive HTML5 elements, it's even worse. HTML5 video won't be a credible successor to Flash video until there is a standardised, high quality a/v format that all browsers support. Even then, the simple fact is that Flash video players offer way more powerful customisation and some features involving content streaming and protection that are still commercially relevant even if the "everything should be free" crowd want to bury their heads in the sand. We have SVG and HTML5 Canvas technology to do drawing without relying on plug-ins these days, except that when you actually try to use them, you find that they aren't always supported to the same extent on all popular browsers, particularly the mobile ones where avoiding the weight of downloading a plug-in seems most advantageous of all. Did I mention web fonts? (Not that it matters until the on-demand font services realise they aren't special and most of us are never going to rent a font instead of paying one-time fees like we do for stock images, blog templates, etc. Or until the rendering on some platforms means most of the fonts actually available don't like the rear end of an animal with stomach problems. But hopefully those issues will pass, at which point having a common font format would be handy too.) All the while, Mozilla and Google are having a pissing match to see who can release some bleeding edge thing faster than the other, but since no-one else supports it the same way yet, it's basically worthless. Meanwhile, they keep pushing releases every few weeks, and they do break things, often those very HTML5 and CSS3 features we're all meant to love that are supposedly driving web technology development. (Google screwed up rounded corners for several successive versions. Firefox still doesn't get basic font rendering right on a lot of platforms, and the current version can't even look up locally installed fonts properly. Don't even start trying to do tricky things like using Java applets -- and before anyone chimes in about obsolete technologies, remember that there was a big push to improve support for applets not so long ago, and that many state-of-the-art programming languages run on the JVM.) The recurring theme in all of this, of course, is that you can't write one thing that runs reliably everywhere today. Until you can, any so-called standards will just be marketing propaganda for one browser team or another.

agravier 15y ago

A side note: the typos, misspelling, tortured wording and grammatical errors make this article particularly painful to read. I first thought that it's an automatic translation. If you are a tech writer, take a minimum care of these things, and you will attract readers instead of repelling them.

EastSmith 15y ago
Agree. Whenever there is a new post on B8 blog I go straight to Techmeme to get "translated" version of it.

teyc 15y ago

Microsoft has been losing its Windows franchise since two key events: 1. Netscape introducing navigator 2. Microsoft stopping development post IE6 This has actually given the web browsers a modicum of stability and people were able to develop against a stable medium, and allowed Firefox to catch up in terms of compatibility. In order to regain its Windows franchise, it needs to reimpose the Windows tax. Firstly, by making Metro IE10 plugin-less, it kills Adobe Flash as a navigator-pretender. Secondly, by introducing a lot of IE10 specific extensions, it hopes that developers will start to make use of these, eventually leading to the balkanization of the web, with MS having the highest share of desktops, it hopes it can buy another 20 years of windows tax. Thirdly, Apple's experience has shown that without plugins, developers will either have to choose between HTML or Apps. Now Apps are a great way to create lock in. The existence of plugins threatens that.

HardyLeung 15y ago
I see the current move more of a defensive move (vs. Apple/Google) than an offensive one (vs. Adobe). Microsoft did not and will not need to kill Adobe's Flash. Steve Jobs already did.
- Silhouette 15y ago
  > Microsoft did not and will not need to kill Adobe's Flash. Steve Jobs already did. The jury is very much still out on that one. Plenty of web sites are still Flash-based at least in part, and big companies are still throwing serious money behind them, and this is several generations of iDevice-without-Flash later. Meanwhile, subjectively it seems like the number of complaints from people using iDevices when they can't use a site for this reason has been growing a little, at least on the forums I follow. The difficulty for Flash, though, isn't just that it has the issues that come with being a plug-in. It also has the issues that come with its development environment and underlying programming language, which have many of the same strengths and weaknesses as other tools these days, so there is nothing you need Flash to do any more. I doubt Apple can kill Flash alone, but a combination of HTML5, JavaScript, better distribution systems for native executables, new JVM languages running as applets, and any number of other technologies might well do it in the longer term. I imagine Adobe are well aware of this, as they have been promoting a lot of alternative (and potentially much better) approaches to their traditionally Flash-owned territory lately.

robinhouston 15y ago

Putting the focus on Silverlight is an oddly parochial angle, when Silverlight has so little significance in comparison with Flash. This move is far more interesting, surely, as confirmation that Flash has lost the browser wars and that web standards will determine the future of web applications. If you make a living as a Flash developer, it's long past time to start learning about the web.

HardyLeung 15y ago
Years ago the web was not powerful enough, hence Macromedia/Adobe Flash. Adobe got complacent, thought it was the king of the world. Then Microsoft joined the RIA fray with Silverlight, battling for control of the web. Flash was everywhere, SL up-and-coming. It was meant to be a spectacular battle, but both companies were blind-sided by this little web standard thing which was about to crash the party... Except that it didn't. The war didn't end because someone won, but because Steve Jobs said so. It was only an illusion that HTML5 renders the RIA plugins irrelevant. In reality, it was the emergence of native apps. First iPhone, then Android, iPad, and now even Windows/Metro. Who cares about rich cross-browser apps? So instead of developing a rich application that runs on all platforms, you either use HTML5/Javascript (if your application is not as hard), or implement the same thing on 3 platforms with 3 different languages on using 3 different toolsets. Wanna do something very rich/powerful cross-browser? Forget it! Everybody happy now?
- watty 15y ago
  I think you hit the nail on the head - something very few people understand. I don't doubt that HTML5 will eventually catch up to the functionality of Flash... in 10 years or so. Until then? Native Apps and hacks to make basic layout and animations work cross browser. Adobe failed hard as well, they couldn't produce a non-buggy plugin for all operating systems and mobile devices. Had they done this, I don't think SJ could have refused it access to the app store.
- loso 15y ago
  And this is the truth. No matter how much people want it to be the HTML5/JS/CSS3 combination is not on the same level as Flash right now. Plugins are a pain but it feels like we are moving sideways and not up. I use to be a web standards fan but in recent years not as much.I guess the grass is always greener....

smilliken 15y ago

Title should be: IE10 preview doesn't support plugins. Silverlight still exists in desktop mode IE10, and every other OS/browser configuration that's currently supported, plus windows phone, xbox, and desktop silverlight apps. (Though it would be nice if IE10 continues to not support plugins-- that would seriously accelerate the push to native web development).

josscrowcroft 15y ago
Agree 100% (can anyone change the title?) I was a little disappointed - the title had me all excited, like "Ooh, IE10 is going to be amazi ... oh wait." Still, it does look really cool, I for one am excited. I'm not switching from Chrome, though.
HardyLeung 15y ago
You mean accelerate the push to native APP development, where anything nontrivial requires the development of the same program in 3 different platforms (iOS, Android, Windows/Metro).
josteink 15y ago
I thought Windows Phone 7 didn't support Silverligth in the browser and that is was only intended for application (you know, App) development. Please do correct me if this has changed and I am wrong.
- HardyLeung 15y ago
  You are correct. Web-based Silverlight application does not run on WP7. You can (rather easily in some cases) develop a WP7 app with the same codebase as a Silverlight app though.

radimd 15y ago

Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is nuts with the whole Metro UI on a PC thing? I mean it may be a good UI for tablets, but I did not buy two 24" widescreen monitors to run IE in fullscreen. When I use my PC I don't care about active tiles or what's the desktop at all. I have apps to run and work to do. And I am not about to replace my mouse & keyboard with touchscreen on the desktop anytime soon (if ever). Simply put tablets and PCs are not the same thing and are not used in for the same purpose. They need different GUIs.

sid0 15y ago
You are definitely not. I use Windows 7 primarily and I'd never even dream of replacing it with Windows 8 in its current state as a horribly thought-out mishmash of design principles.
- josteink 15y ago
  So let me start this one off by saying "developers! developers! developers!" This isn't Windows 8 RTM, this is Windows (7-to-become-8) Developer Preview where they show off where they are heading, give you a chance to get a feel for it, get a feel for the design-language Microsoft is putting out here and allow you to adapt your applications to this new format. Because this is really such a new format, you need to play with it to get it. So yes, this is very incomplete. In it's current state it is not intended as a production OS to replace Windows 7 either. It's a developer preview. It's supposed to bring developers up to speed on the Windows 8 platform and how you build for it. Lots of people are treating this as a beta, almost like an RTM, and I honestly think people doing that is missing the point entirely.
  - sid0 15y ago
    I'm not taking the bugs into account here (though there are plenty). I'm talking about the design philosophy.
narag 15y ago
Microsoft simply can't throw out their native program base. When .NET was released, they promoted the idea that it was going to be the Windows API in the long run. But most commercial applications (including Microsoft's) are still written for the native API. While .NET was a success for custom applications. I expect pretty much the same from Metro. It will be adopted for certain uses: small and touch devices. For the rest I doubt it'll get in the way. I believe Microsoft is trying to atrract developers to the new interface, but "native Windows" is there to stay.

Tichy 15y ago

Hm, plugins have other uses than just displaying legacy data formats. I want to be able to enhance the web sites I regularly visit. OK, and filter ads while I am at it.

mcbarry 15y ago
This is referring to runtime environments like Flash and Silverlight, not browser extensions like Adblock.
- Tichy 15y ago
  The original MS blog article that somebody linked seems to say "no plugins", though. No Flash and no Silverlight is just a corollary of that. If they allow extensions, how would they prevent Flash?
  - frou_dh 15y ago
    Presumably the extension API would be quite limited.

chico_dusty 15y ago

Do y'all think the people who decried a lack of flash in iOS will recant now?

neilk 15y ago

A question for those of you who work with Microsoft frameworks. Why do you believe in any technology that MS gives you? How is it these people have any credibility left? Their technologies are invariably doomed to obsolesence within about 2-3 years of their introduction. Those that the web doesn't make obsolete are eventually thrown under the bus by Microsoft themselves in about the same time frame.

pcj 15y ago
Silverlight was released in 2007 and as rumored lets say Windows 8 probably comes around next year or so - it still managed to provide an alternative to flash for all these years (at least for certain kinds of RIA). If HTML5 becomes a standard, isn't that a good thing that Microsoft is supporting it completely? Besides that, folks can continue to leverage their XAML (for UI) and C#/VB skills for building even new Metro style apps.
three14 15y ago
But they do keep your software running on newer versions of Windows years after Windows has moved on, so long as you kept to the API as documented. Also, it's hard to say that Apple or desktop Linux is fundamentally different, except that the schedule of changing everything might be slightly longer.
- gaius 15y ago
  Let's see what Linus himself has to say about desktop Linux: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/08/05/linus_slams_gnome_three/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/08/05/linus_slams_gnome_th...
  - rbanffy 15y ago
    I agree Gnome Shell is less than perfect, but, hey, I can still use Gnome 2 if I want. More to the point, he can use it.
namdnay 15y ago
The Windows SDK begs to differ

StrawberryFrog 15y ago

If Microsoft is all-in on JavaScript on the web and desktop, I guess that Google will have a very hard time convincing them to switch to Dart instead.

tcarnell 15y ago

It wasn't necesarily a bad idea to compete with Flash, but SilverLight was about 10 years too late and offered no reason for the entire world to switch from Flash. Thus, the end of SilverLight was just a question of 'when', not 'if'.

gavanwoolery 15y ago

I am glad that they are ditching all of the pluggins, but sad that they are settling on javascript as their primary language. I know that the Hacker News community is very pro-javascript for the most part, so I expect to be down-voted. But at the very least, I think javascript could benefit from more competition. I remember when Microsoft was the company that made standards, now they seem be playing catch-up with the rest of the industry. What I really would have loved to see them do is completely reinvent the browser from the ground up. Support javascript and html 5 as "legacy" but create a new, effective, and fast language for applications and rendering. Web browsers are still stuck in document mode. We don't see anything wrong with this, but links and back buttons are not the best way to control application state. We have moved beyond documents and primarily create applications these days (even if they are document-hosting applications like blogs). Imagine if Photoshop was controlled using links and back buttons. I know that javascript is capable of more advanced, realtime techniques, but most websites are stilled laid out in the page by page format these days. On top of it all, even V8 javascript still runs 10-20x slower than C.

mattmanser 15y ago
The choice is javascript and Html OR .Net and Xaml, not just javascript. While the plugin is dead, the stack is not. I remember when C#/VB.Net first start competing head to head and it quickly became apparent that C# had won even though there were originally more VB devs. It's far from decided yet. MS's usual javascript style is actually fairly odd and irritating compared to what we're all used to, so I wouldn't be surprised if people avoid it. They also have been pushing a bit of an odd way of attempting to get intellisense support on js. Even the code examples coming out of MS shouldn't be noted, they used to pump out a lot of VB.Net examples when everyone else was using C#, which wasn't too bad as you could convert them fairly easily. The more I think about this, the more it looks like it's going to be a messy fight. If you want to see what's winning, watch the questions on StackOverflow. BTW, they've also created a lot of vendor specific CSS extensions including a grid, so they are attempting to get out of document mode and move html forward. I know your gripe though, always irritated me too.
- noamsml 15y ago

rodh257 15y ago

The headline is sensationalist and wrong. Think of it this way, Metro is their tablet/iPad mode. The iPad has no flash/silverlight in the browser, and neither does Metro IE. This in order to get the best tablet experience, battery life etc. The difference is, you can hit a button and open up full Windows desktop mode and get the full browsing experience, while accepting a tradeoff in battery life. They aren't abandoning it, they're just optimizing for the use case. In fact, Silverlight developers should be happy - with some simple namespace changes, they demonstrated converting a silverlight program to a Metro UI on stage in the keynote. Sure your program may not run in the browser unless they swap to full desktop mode, but it will be easy for you to make it a proper installed application if you desire. It's a good decision in my book, and will result in a better tablet experience. Frankly all the misinformation and hyperbole around this is getting exhausting. They've really not pulled the rug from under anyone at all.

blahedo 15y ago
> Think of it this way, Metro is their tablet/iPad mode. That's not what the article says: "The Metro-style browser is the full screen, chromeless implementation of Internet Explorer that most people are expected to use with Windows 8." I have also read this elsewhere. Do you have a cite to back up your claim that Metro is tablet-only?
- brodney 15y ago
  I read the tablet comment to mean that it was a reduced functionality version, not that it would be tablet only.
illumin8 15y ago
It's funny how when Apple did this with the iPad the cries of "no flash!" were deafening. Now "it is a good decision."
- Giometrix 15y ago
  Apple doesn't allow plugins in their web browser. Microsoft is not allowing plugins in Metro. Flash on the web has existed for years, and not having plugins hurts end users because they experience the entire web. No plugins for something that doesn't exist yet hurts no one, because apps will be designed from the ground up without plugins. See the difference?

nextparadigms 15y ago

But if they are giving up Flash....does that mean they will start using WebM in IE10?

jmilloy 15y ago

The author's claim seems to be simply false; his post explicitly says (quoting Sinofsky): "In Windows 8, IE 10 is available as a Metro style app and as a desktop app. The desktop app continues to fully support all plug-ins and extensions." (emphasis mine)

melling 15y ago

Steve Jobs once said that Apple and Microsoft are 100% of the PC market and if they agree on something it becomes a standard. These days we need to consider Google too. Anyway, it looks like HTML5 just became the "official" standard.

melling 15y ago

Is Metro UI only for tablets? I was under the impression that was going to be the default desktop UI too. In what mode will desktop IE run by default?

kaylarose 15y ago

Is Netflix in-browser streaming still dependent on Silverlight?

jslatts 15y ago

All this consternation and speculation (and general negativeness) about a completely alpha stage product is why Apple does not show their products (much) before release. Think about it. Now if you are Microsoft, you have to decide whether your vision is good or if you should "listen" to what the market is telling you and shift your strategy. Glad I don't have to make that decision.

nkassis 15y ago
They sure are getting a crapload of publicity out of this. I much prefer them talking about it early than to late. If it's really bad ideas at least they can adjust before finalizing win8.
jannes 15y ago
Apple doesn't show their hardware products much before release. With their operating systems it's different. Remember, iOS 5 was announced a few months ago and still isn't released yet.

imurray 15y ago

It would be nice if Microsoft provided a non-silverlight interface to the Feynman lectures that they have the rights to: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/escience/archive/2009/07/15/project-tuva-richard-feynman-is-now-available-to-all.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/escience/archive/2009/07/15/project-...

iam 15y ago

Even if Metro does not allow Silverlight plugins, it is still using WinRT, which is using XAML UIs and more importantly developers can use C# to write apps against it. So the knowledge isn't entirely lost, it's just transferred.

runjake 15y ago

It should be noted before the usual MS flames roll in that Silverlight is an umbrella product name for the underlying technologies. The same underlying technologies that encompass WPF and Metro. You'll still be using the same XAML/C#/etc

Apocryphon 15y ago

How much money did Microsoft sink into Silverlight?

Hominem 15y ago

I have invested a lot of time into sivlerlight app. I think the best possible outcome is that Windows 8 Metro will support silverlight natively and silverlight apps will be sold in the app store. I always thought of silverlight as a stalking horse to get people hooked on XAML and C# anyway.