Feeling unsupported
Netflix has said it's to drop the Silverlight plug-in as it looks to a future with HTML5 video in the coming years.
According to the Netflix Tech Blog, the decision has been made as Microsoft has stated it will only support Silverlight 5 until 2021. The Blog says that Netflix has been working with the major players to find a replacement "to solve this problem of playing premium video content directly in the browser without the need for browser plug-ins such as Silverlight.
The lack of support isn't the only reason for the change, however, and Netflix also cites other (good) reasons for the change. They don't like the idea that Silverlight is a plug-in and therefore needs to be installed by the end user; Netflix says that people are wary of plug-ins for security reasons and, besides, not all browsers support them.
Apparently Netflix has already begun working with Google to implement support for the HTML5 premium video extensions in Chrome browser and has started using this on certain Samsung Chromebooks. Netflix has said it aims to test its HTML5 video player on Windows and OS X in the future.
