“but opera still fails. and it is opera’ plugin architecture to blame. it is too f.. strict and paranoid. many bizzare browsers can run silverlight in 100% with some browser spoofing. lone opera fails. whos fault is it?”

Have you ever heard the expression “Assume makes an ASS out of U and ME?”. It’s quite likely that the reasons for the incompatibility are a lot more complicated than Opera’s “paranoia”. If you are a software writer you should know that, and if not you should spend more time learning and less time trolling.

I accept that the developer environment is free for silverlight but this is just another ploy by MS to steal market share. Like giving away DOS, Win3, etc.. Free MS versions tend to disappear as soon as they have regained total market dominance.

.net is a bloated, monolithic development platform that does not deserve continued support in the age of an open and standards compliant web. This is my opinion, yes, but I have a lot of development experience in the MS world, dating from MFC and before. I’m sorry to disagree but silverlight (an MS technology) supporting .net (another MS technology) is hardly a feature.. but another MS approach to locking users in, or at best making it inconvenient for people to work freely with mixed technologies on their terms (Outlook/Exchange anyone?).

“as for boycoting, yeah.. boycot any webmail because they do not support opera? naaah. it wont happen.”

As usual you are quoting wrong for the purpose of bulstering your weak argument. I never said about boycotting webmail, and in any case, your argument is still weak because only some webmails are problematic in Opera, and most are not.

Sorry – Silverlight gets interesting when it starts looking like it’s something new, interesting and open. Right now it looks like MS answer to Flash because they couldn’t buy the company (their usual trick). Same as Vista/Win7 starts to get interesting when there’s a real reason for moving to it, instead of armtwisting from lack of drivers support for XP and refusal to release DX 10 on it etc etc..

The TLS 1.2 I am guessing will be added to other browser in a while and that would make online banking and shopping more secure

Still, Javascript, with proper content markup and use of Canvas and sometimes Video, beats them both.

first of all – sliverlight DOES bring something over flash – FREE and easy to use development environemnt – visual studio (Express IS free). adobe flash requires serious software investment

secondly – silverlight integrates GREAT with existing .net applications (you’d be surprised how many of these is floating around), thus allowing easy and non-revolutionary development. flash cant do that

from the developer point of view it is so atractive, that perspective of locking out 5% of user (opera/linux) is quite good actualy.

as for boycoting, yeah.. boycot any webmail because they do not support opera? naaah. it wont happen.

and i will repeat. microsoft went GREAT lenghts to allow silverlight work on ANY ‘netscape plugin capable’ browser. yes, there is a browser sniffing done in default deploynment, but only because opera fails even without it. there are some hacks around, you can do proxy rewrite and mask yourself entirely as FF. but opera still fails. and it is opera’ plugin architecture to blame. it is too f.. strict and paranoid.

many bizzare browsers can run silverlight in 100% with some browser spoofing. lone opera fails. whos fault is it?

What we have here is the subtle game of market manipulation. Firefox is only reluctantly supported by MS because they admit that IE is losing market share, and MS made a corporate decision that potential Silverlight dominance was worth the compromise of supporting FF. From MS’s perspective, no such benefit can be felt by supporting Opera.

From the user’s and developer’s perspective, what does Silverlight actually bring to the table that Flash and other technologies don’t already? Nothing. And that’s the point – like Vista, Silverlight brings no new benefits to users. It’s another lock-in technology. That’s the only “user issue” – awareness. So the solution is clear: boycott silverlight, and boycott sites that use silverlight.

The real truth is always what matters. What some dumb guy thinks because he doesn’t understand anything never matters.

Opera doesn’t deliver on par with Safari 4 beta because Opera 10 is still in alpha.

“it is what market,” Opera has more than 20% in Russia and other places so that is not the issue.

“cross platform and cross browser support” Microsoft silverlight page

Then why does flash player have much better support than silverlight, flash works on all browser and OSs

It is the past that defines the future

The Great Feature Train Robbery
http://dustinwilson.com/articles/2009/02/24/The_Great_Feature_Train_Robbery/

WRONG

it is user’ issue. user cant use silverlight in opera. he checks silverlight in firefox (it works there) so he ‘knows’ that it is opera issue. it doesnt matter what the REAL TRUTH is, it is what market, the average joe, thinks. and he thinks ‘it is opera issue’. pretending that he should know that it is MS fault (it isnt, it is opera NS wrapper problem) take action and solve this problem by himself is stupid, naive and a waste of time

:“all recent opera additions pale in comparison to what safari 4 presented” Opera invented most of the things, tabs were invented by Opera”

even that isnt true – opera wasnt the FIRST browser with tabs :)
but abyway – WHO CARES who was first? it is good for historians and geeks. users DO NOT CARE. they care what is now. and NOW opera doesnt deliver en par with what safari4 presented. substituting current achievements with glorious memories of the past is.. leading nowhere. and it sounds like it is opera stronges selling point now ‘we invented everything you use in our competitors browsers, use our browser’… eeee? it doesnt work that way.

“all recent opera additions pale in comparison to what safari 4 presented” Opera invented most of the things, tabs were invented by Opera

“Why bother making browsers secure? I agree. That is why I use Firefox instead of Opera. Firefox doesn’t give a sh*t about security, unlike Opera.” They do care and if you don’t you may get your identify stolen or your computer will be used to hack others. Security is very big right now with all the hacking going on at the moment.