Tag Archives: Silverlight
A Letter to Adobe Flash: At Least Consider Open Source
Posted on 01. May, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 
8 Comments
Dear Adobe Flash:
We’ve had some great times together. Awesome videos, time-wasting games and websites with a ton of bright colors, which I have fully enjoyed. I’ve even spent some time learning how to program you. It’s been a great relationship. But something has changed, dearest Flash. The problem is not really you, it’s more me. And perhaps the rest of the web. You see, I really don’t know how to break this to you, but things change. People change. More importantly, technology changes.
Since you’re already offered up for free and huge amounts of people readily enjoy your technology, I just no longer understand why you are not open source. Sure, you can offer up mega-expensive tools to create for yourself if you want, but if you really desire to be a part of the new rules of internet architecture you’re going to need to do yourself a favor and open yourself up to the world.
This doesn’t really have to do with Apple’s relationship with you, because once you make Steve Jobs angry, it’s over. It more has to do with the odd juxtaposition of you paired with Google’s applications in Chrome browser and Chrome OS. The idea that Google has for these platforms is to be an open source alternative to what Apple and Microsoft offer in terms of architecture, but in their battle with these two, they have decide to include you as a closed-source participant in this rivalry. Even Android is expected to enter into the fray sometime in 2010.
Your biggest competition in this regard, HTML5, is available for anyone to use. Even Microsoft’s Silverlight is working towards having their technology as an open source platform, a baffling revelation to me since you should be trying to improve yourself before its too late and you have faded into something that we think of as once relevant.
Sure, maybe you don’t care what people think about you. But there are really no drawbacks to taking the plunge. Do you really feel that you have the resources to consistently protect yourself from malicious security attacks? We know you’ve had some problems with this in the past, and it’s only a matter of time before another “issue” comes up again. The only way Google feels comfortable going forward with you is if they integrate your technology into theirs so that the vulnerabilities you have can be patched as soon as they arise.
Well, at least with all the news coming out about you, I’m sure you’re at least thinking about it.
UPDATE: Please take the time to sign an online petition to open source Flash. It will take you thirty seconds. Thanks.
Firefox Lorentz Emulates Chrome’s Stability Features
Posted on 09. Apr, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 0 Comments
ReadWriteWeb is reporting that the beta of Firefox 3.6.3, dubbed Lorentz, is testing a new feature in the browser where plugins are isolated by tab in the event that it crashes. This allows for a singular unstable tab to crash instead of the whole browser. This may sound familiar to those who use Chrome, and will be a new feature in a future stable release of Firefox.
What’s funny is that rival browsers are making no bones about taking Google’s browser ideas and turning them into their own. Microsoft’s IE8 InPrivate, which is the same thing as Chrome’s Incognito mode, comes to mind. Witness the crash screen in Lorentz compared to Chrome’s:
Heading down this path is great for browsers overall, but it seems funny at times when you see competing browsers copying Chrome’s functions in order to keep up with its frenetic pace of development. Indeed, Chrome has quickly gone from version 1.0 in 2008 to 4.0 stable a few months ago.
One of the reasons for early adoption has been Google’s decision to auto-update Chrome. While initially this was heavily criticized, you can see here how fast Chrome has migrated to newer versions because of this functionality:
While Firefox also pushes updates, users are prompted to install them. This may be less obtrusive in terms of privacy than Chrome, and still allows for a regular schedule of updates to the browser:
Microsoft does not prompt for IE updates leaving some users still stuck on IE6, although that metric is slowly changing:
You can try out the new Firefox Lorentz by downloading it from here. Lorentz only isolates QuickTime, Flash, and Silverlight as their own processes. You can, however, customize it to do so for other plugins such as Adobe Reader through these instructions.
Will Chrome OS Allow Third-Party Plugins?
Posted on 26. Dec, 2009 by Daniel Cawrey. 0 Comments
So, back to yesterday’s topic of Silverlight, Windows4all
and how it relates to Chrome OS.
Because Silverlight is a file that is downloaded as an executable, when I fired up Chrome OS I wasn’t able to do anything with it. So that means for now, there is no Silverlight for Chrome OS unless anybody out there knows how I can install it. Of course installing software runs counter to the purpose of Chrome OS, right? It still remains, however, that I feel this would be very useful to use when I need a Windows environment to do something such as manipulate a file.
I think an epic battle between Google and Microsoft is heating up. With Microsoft’s Codeplex open source community developing Windows4all, it appears that Redmond is realizing they are going to have to go open source or go bust. They are woefully behind at this point, however. In fact, the move to make Silverlight open source has been met with problems in the past week and remains without a GPL.
Are third party plugins going to be allowed in Chrome OS? Will Google in essence regulate what plugins can be installed? In order to maintain security, I think that is the option they will go down. For example, the builds of Chrome OS we are using right now have Flash, and I assume that Google will maintain updates for it. Remember the security warning for Flash users earlier this year? Yeah, that’s why it won’t be a plugin for Chrome OS.
New Windows 7 Webapp Available
Posted on 25. Dec, 2009 by Daniel Cawrey. 0 Comments
For those who jones for their Windows environment anytime, anywhere can now turn to a new application called Windows4all. With Windows4all a user can access a Windows 7 environment through their browser. Windows4all has many of the same features that Windows 7 has with files running in a security sandbox within the environment.
There are some programs installed such as a rich text editor, a media player and an RSS reader. You can even install your own programs. However, all applications that are installed need to be created in Silverlight, which is also is needed to run Windows4all. Silverlight is Microsoft’s web platform for browser applications.
Silverlight requires a small plugin, much like Flash. Although at the download page it was indicated that Silverlight may not run in my Chrome browser, it ended up working fine. Navigating over to the Windows4all page, the Windows 7 interface came up fine and ran at a pretty good speed. While it wasn’t blazing fast, I felt that I would be able to use this if I needed to.
The project is in Alpha right now, but once it passes beta the source code will be released. Interestingly, this appears to be backed by Microsoft as the software is being developed by their open source community called Codeplex. Even though when you log in to Windows4all it explcitly states they don’t have anything to do with Microsoft, I’m pretty sure they’re aware since this project would be blatant piracy otherwise for allowing Windows 7 to open in a browser.
So where does the storage for my files go on this thing?
