How to install Microsoft Silverlight on Firefox on 12.04?

Question

I am using Ubuntu 12.04 LTS 64-bit on my system. I am using Mozilla Firefox 37.0 and Google Chrome 41.0 browsers.

I went to http://windows.microsoft.com/en-in/windows-10/about in both browsers. In Chrome I could see the content on the webpage perfectly. In Firefox it asked me to install Microsoft Silverlight. I'm surprised that on Chrome it didn't ask me to install Silverlight.

Please explain me what is Silverlight, why it is needed, and how to install this on my system in an easy, efficient and reliable way?

P.S. Please don't suggest to do anything using WINE as I know it's not a reliable approach.

Thanks in advance.

Solution

First,

CLOSE FIREFOX before running these commands !!! open a terminal and type the following commands one by one.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:pipelight/stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install --install-recommends pipelight-multi
sudo pipelight-plugin --update
pipelight-plugin --enable silverlight
sudo pipelight-plugin --create-mozilla-plugins

This will install silverlight in firefox and not in google chrome or chromium as chrome no longer uses those types of plugins.

Finally, some apps may check if you are using windows and all you need to do is use a useragent switcher to circumvent this issue. Look for useragent in firefox addons.

more info:

http://www.webupd8.org/2013/08/pipelight-use-silverlight-in-your-linux.html

and homepage:

http://pipelight.net/cms/about.html

From what I gather, pipelight runs silverlight using wine in the background somehow but this not only works, it works better than silverlight does in Windows and installs as a plugin to your linux browser (not a wine workaround). Tested on netflix and the timewarner cable tv app.

Comments

[mchid]

@LDC3 boom!!!!! :) don't ever let any one ever tell you that you can't do something in linux.

[LDC3]

@mchid I stand corrected.

[mchid]

silverlight.codeplex.com/SourceControl/latest

[LDC3]

@mchid You're right. Windows? Check. Mac? Check. Linux? Check. Silverlight works on all major OS's plus all major browsers, including Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari, and yes, Internet Explorer. from microsoft.com/silverlight/what-is-silverlight

[mchid]

@LDC3 well, no longer on chrome as chrome has now banned NPAPI plugins :(

[web.learner]

Wow people. Lets make sure we are following the be nice policy here. Keep the comments civil.

[A.B.]

Not with Firefox 43.0.4 =\

[mchid]

@A.B. I haven't installed it in a little while but the last time I did I had to run the silverlight installation manually (using wine commands), specified to a fresh wine prefix. I did this after installing pipelight. Starting firefox in a terminal shows the install failure. Also, I had to install wine gecko installer and of course, the wine silverlight installer.

[sites]

I had to use --fix-missing in sudo apt-get install --install-recommends pipelight-multi

[balu]

Pipelight used to work for me but suddenly Silverlight didn't work / show up in about:plugins anymore. So, here I go and install pipelight again (following the above commands and juanpastas' recommendation). Result: Doesn't work. I'm running Firefox 47.0 on Ubuntu 12.04.

[balu]

To add to my previous comment: By "doesn't work" I mean that "about:plugins" still doesn't a Silverlight plugin.

[balu]

Update: It looks like the following additional command has to be executed after sudo pipelight --enable-silverlight: sudo pipelight-plugin --create-mozilla-plugins. Now, at least bubblemark.com/silverlight2.html works for me but Netflix and the demo on microsoft.com/silverlight/iis-smooth-streaming/demo still don't work… (Netflix doesn't recognize that Silverlight is installed, the demo stays all gray.)

[Sufiyan Ghori]

works like a charm with stan.com.au as well after running sudo pipelight-plugin --create-mozilla-plugins

[psychok7]

Yes i got it working on ubuntu 16.04 thanks to sudo pipelight-plugin --create-mozilla-plugins

[Martin Thoma]

"The repository 'ppa.launchpad.net/pipelight/stable/ubuntu bionic Release' does not have a Release file"

[mchid]

@MartinThoma Yes, unfortunately pipelight is no longer maintained and there were no packages available for bionic. Also, this uses NPAPI plugins which are no longer supported on newer versions of firefox or chrome. If you are using something like waterfox, I guess it's possible but I'm not even sure if installing an older version would work as I think it has to verify the hashsum of the plugins which have changed. Can I ask why you need this? For DRM?

[mchid]

@MartinThoma The best you can do is delete the ppa and try to install the pipelight deb files for Xenial manually but I am really not sure this will work as I mentioned before.