Google Chrome is ending support for Silverlight – used by NOW TV and BT Sport to play video.
The Microsoft runtime depends on an ageing plug-in protocol called Netscape Plugin Application Programming Interface (NPAPI), for which Google is currently phasing out support in its browser.
The Google Chrome team originally speculated that support for the old protocol would be removed from Chrome before the end of 2014.
Silverlight remains very popular with broadcasters because of the level of encryption it offers. Many broadcasters seem to be sticking with Silverlight instead of migrating to HTML5.
“With each step in this transition, we get closer to a safer, more mobile-friendly web,” said Justin Schuh, software engineer and plug-in retirement planner at Google.
