Despite its technical prowess, the "plugin era" was destined to end. Several factors contributed to the decline of the Silverlight plugin:
| Browser | Support Level | Workaround Required? | | :--- | :--- | :--- | | | No support (NPAPI removed in 2015) | Impossible without old portable version | | Microsoft Edge (Chromium) | No support | Impossible | | Mozilla Firefox | No support (NPAPI removed) | Impossible | | Safari (macOS) | No support (NPAPI deprecated) | Impossible | | Internet Explorer 11 | Limited (EOL, requires manual enabling) | Yes (unsafe) | ms silverlight plugin
In its prime, Silverlight was the backbone of some of the web’s biggest experiences. Its biggest selling point was . Despite its technical prowess, the "plugin era" was
When the iPhone launched in 2007, followed by the iPad in 2010, the web began to shift away from plugins. Apple famously decided not to support Flash or Silverlight on iOS, arguing that plugins were resource-heavy, insecure, and unstable. Without a presence on mobile devices, Silverlight became irrelevant for consumer-facing websites. Its biggest selling point was
Microsoft officially stopped development on Silverlight in 2012, though they committed to supporting the existing plugin for years. On , Microsoft Silverlight reached its official "End of Life."