Norton Security

[Nigel]

Hello all - Norton Security "Contact Us" sent me here & I apologise if I've selected the wrong "Board" for my question.

Norton just flagged up - Silverlight 5.1.50918.0 - & it says "This program has reached its end of life & may pose additional risks.  You may want to uninstall this program or exclude it from future scans".

A search seems to tell me that it went end of life in 2021, so I'm wondering why Norton has flagged it now - it's the first time I've ever seen it mentioned.

I don't really understand what it does, nor do I know what to do - uninstall it or leave it alone?  I don't want things to suddenly stop working.  If anyone can help me, I'd be most grateful.

With thanks for your time & attention & my best wishes for a Happy New Year 🙂

[gg30340]

Silverlight is an old Microsoft add on which is no longer supported by Microsoft.

Unless you have a need for it and given that you were/are unsure what it is I doubt that you actually do need it so you can just uninstall it if you want.

The following links might give you a better idea about it and whether or not you want to uninstall it. Personally I would uninstall it.

 https://malwaretips.com/blogs/microsoft-silverlight-what-it-is-should-i-remove-it/

https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/what-was-microsoft-silverlight

[WSH]

That’s a name from the past.

We were taking it off systems before I retired, as it had become a notorious vulnerability, and I’ve been retired seven years now.  That must be a really old system you’ve got there, mate.  Not still running Shockwave and Flash Player are you?

[Nigel]

Thank you for your very helpful reply, gg30340, I will uninstall it when I get back to the PC.

[Nigel]

WSH - Recognised Expert - in sarcasm perhaps? Certainly not helpful answers.

[WSH]

Oh, sorry.  It geniuely wasn't intended to come across that way.

Actually, to clarify that a bit, Flash and Shockwave were found to be fundamentally insecure and so were removed from most sytems long ago.  Silverlight was Microsoft’s own version and was removed for similar reasons.  What I meant was, if you also have Flash (or Shockwave) still installed you ought to be thinking about removing those too.

[Nigel]

WSH - then my apologies & for the late reply.  The PC isn't that old (6 years-ish), certainly no Flash or Shockwave.  I wondered why Norton has only now decided to mention Silverlight.  I'll remove it shortly & fingers crossed everything still works afterwards.