Silverlight vs Flash – Differences and Installation Guide

firefoxflash-playerpluginssilverlight

I went Microsoft's website and in order to see some videos is requests me to install Silverlight? Is there any benefit?

I don't really feel like installing a plugin from Microsoft, but I wonder is there anything special I might be missing, or is it just the Microsoft substitute for flash?

Best Answer

Wikipedia on Silverlight:

Microsoft Silverlight is a web application framework with a scope similar to Adobe Flash. Version 2, released in October 2008, brought additional interactivity features and support for .NET languages and development tools.

So basicly, it is a competitor to Flash that uses .NET languages and is more focused on developing interactive web applications, rather than animations and movies.

Currently, Silverlight is only available for Windows and OS X, but there is an open source implementation being developed by the Mono team entitled Moonlight.

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