#Avast firefox extension review Patch#
#Avast firefox extension review android#
#Avast firefox extension review windows 8#

Type Silverlight into your Start menu or screen, press Enter, then click the Permissions tab and click Allow or Deny for all listed sites. Alternatively, you can choose precisely which sites can display Silverlight content. You can either run Silverlight only when you need it by choosing ‘ Click to play’ or ‘ Ask to Activate’, or disable it altogether, on your browser’s Plug-ins page. This means that you’re less likely to need the plug-in than a few years ago. Like Flash, Silverlight is gradually being phased out in favor of HTML5, with reports suggesting that Microsoft will drop support altogether by 2021.

#Avast firefox extension review windows 8#

But with the last new version released four years ago and Windows 8 supposed to herald a new “plug-in free” era, it seems that Silverlight is on its way out. However, that hasn’t stopped many big names from using Silverlight, including Netflix(until 2013), Amazon (for Prime Instant Video) and, of course, Microsoft itself, including in Bing Maps. Once touted as Microsoft’s more versatile alternative to Flash, Silverlight unfortunately replicated some of the same problems as Adobe’s plug-in, being slow to load, prone to crash and delivering less than perfect video playback. In Firefox, go to Tools, Addons, Plugins and choose ‘Never activate’ next to the Java entries and in Chrome, type chrome:plugins into the address bar, press Enter and disable Java from there.

#Avast firefox extension review android#

One place you’ll use it without realizing is on your Android phone, because Google’s mobile operating system was written in the Java programming language, as are most Android apps.Īs with Flash, you can choose to run Java only when you need it, but it’s best to disable it altogether. Nothing, and generally you shouldn’t need to unless you’re visiting a particularly old website or using a program that’s based on Java (which will run separately from your browser). Java has never really recovered from this bad publicity, and remains neglected by Oracle. This led to Mozilla blocking Java in Firefox, and for security experts such as Graham Cluley to recommend that users disable the plug-in immediately.

#Avast firefox extension review Patch#

A few years ago, there was a significant increase in the number of malicious attacks targeting Java, and Oracle (the company that owns Java) was slow to patch known flaws. Once regarded as a “key building block of the web”, Java has long served its purpose and, like Flash, its security vulnerabilities now make it more of a hindrance than a help. In Firefox, go to Tools, Add-ons, Plugins and select ‘Ask to Activate’ next to Shockwave Flash. Scroll down to Plug-ins, select ‘ Click to play’ and click Finished.

To do this in Chrome, go to Settings, ‘ Show advanced settings’, Privacy and click ‘ Content settings’. Instead, you should disable the plug-in and choose whether or not to run it when you encounter Flash. Sadly, as some sites still use Flash, including BBC News, if you remove it, you won’t be able to see certain content.

You can test Shumway by installing the add-on and trying the demos at /shumway, which include rendering this fearsome tiger. YouTube recently announced that it was ditching Flash for HTML5, and Mozilla is developing a tool called Shumway that converts Flash content into HTML5. Add to this the well-known performance problems – such as Flash crashing and taking your browser with it – and it’s clear why you should opt out of this buggy old plug-in.Ī lot of web content that once used Flash, such as videos, games and animations, is now rendered in HTML5, which is built into all modern browsers.