No Silverlight for your Metro browser

I’ve just read that IE10 metro won’t support the Silverlight plugin anymore (1,2).  The reasons behind this decision are that they want to make the browser less resource extensive.  Microsoft appears to be aiming for an entire HTML5 supporting browser.  They say that the plugins drain too much battery life with their updates and that they’re not always that secure.

IE10 will come in two flavors with one core, so you’re not completely lost.  The desktop version of IE10 will support plugins.

I think it’s a bit of a mistake that Microsoft won’t allow plugins in the metro version.  It would provide them with the edge they need over other vendors that don’t support Flash and Silverlight.  Though it seems that together with Windows 8, they’re looking to make the whole metro experience as smooth as possible and are eliminating as many risks as possible.

Switching from Metro mode to desktop mode appears to be very easy , if we believe the Building Windows8 blog:

On Windows 8, consumer sites and “line of business” applications that require legacy ActiveX controls will continue to run in the desktop browser, and people can tap “Use Desktop View” in Metro style IE for these sites. For what these sites do, the power of HTML5 makes more sense, especially in Windows 8 apps.

It appears Microsoft is really discouraging developers from using plugins in their website. With allot of big players jumping on the HTML5 bandwagon the clock seems to be ticking for browser plugins…