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I have Silverlight 5 installed on my Windows 8.1 64-bit computer. When I try to watch Amazon Instant Video I get a prompt telling me to install Silverlight for better quality. I also can't get Silverlight tests to run.

There's nothing wrong with my installation. I just have to use Internet Explorer for Silverlight.

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    Silverlight is EOL. Amazon, too, will probably soon(-ish) completely switch to Flash or maybe HTML5 with MSE and EME.
    – Daniel B
    May 14, 2015 at 21:46

3 Answers 3

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In September 2013, Google announced its decision to move away from support for NPAPI (the Netscape Plugin Application Programming Interface). In Chrome 42 NPAPI is disabled by default, disallowing plugins like Silverlight and Java. Threat Report explains, "NPAPI’s 90s-era architecture has become a leading cause of hangs, crashes, security incidents, and code complexity."

There are other APIs that companies like Microsoft and Oracle can use to modernize their web-plugins and one can expect them to be updated to support these alternative options, but for now, as per this article from Microsoft Microsoft Silverlight may not work in recent versions of Google Chrome, you'll need to do the following:

  1. Paste this into chrome chrome://flags/#enable-npapi
  2. Select Enable
  3. When using the site, Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, etc... you need to right click the content and click Run this Plugin
  4. (optional) laugh at Chrome for underestimating superuser
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    True. Shall we agree to say IE was a failure on MS's part, and hopefully Edge will be better
    – td512
    May 11, 2015 at 5:28
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    I think Edge is still using Trident. I've personally taken to calling it "Internet Explorer 12" for that very reason. Also, IE wasn't a total failure. At one point it was considered the best browser out there, cutting short the life of Netscape.
    – TSJNachos117
    May 11, 2015 at 7:26
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    @IsmaelMiguel - Google annouced they were going to do this since 2013 which they originally annouced their plan. They later changed it to 2015 in Nov 2014. This has been a long been planned. Sept 2015 cannot come soon enough. Google was more then public about their plans with npapi
    – Ramhound
    May 11, 2015 at 12:49
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    @IsmaelMiguel - Java is a npapi plug-in. Silverlight is a npapi plug-in. Did you read those links I provided before you asked that question? Flash and Silverlight will either become non-npapi plug-ins or stop working with Chrome come Sept 2015.
    – Ramhound
    May 11, 2015 at 12:59
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    I should point out IE doesn't even support npapi. So your underhanded comment about Microsoft is sort of funny.
    – Ramhound
    May 11, 2015 at 13:02
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Great answer above, utilizing the override option in Chrome Flags. However, this will only work until September 2015

See Chromium Blog they write as follows;

In September 2015 we will remove the override and NPAPI support will be permanently removed from Chrome. Installed extensions that require NPAPI plugins will no longer be able to load those plugins.

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    Good bye Silverlight and Flash. Welcome to the age of HTML5
    – NoName
    Jul 27, 2015 at 8:17
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    Too bad you can't selectively block (click-to-play) HTML5 elements, so welcome to the age of wasted bandwidth, memory, CPU cycles, and the land of no peace and quiet with more and more damned big, long, loud autoplaying HD videos everywhere (especially ads) and no way to prevent it.
    – Synetech
    Aug 21, 2015 at 13:59
  • @Synetech I strongly doubt such tactics will return as most end users will simply not accept them as a good part of their experience. Your own reaction is proof of that. The will of the market (eventually) governs the producers.
    – OneHoopyFrood
    Sep 14, 2015 at 15:11
  • @Synetech There are addons to block that, like this one for Firefox.
    – Cees Timmerman
    Oct 8, 2015 at 13:24
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With Chrome 43 I find that using the enable-npapi flag no longer helps to enable NPAPI plugins.

While the flag remains in the chrome:// settings for version 43, and despite Google saying that from "Chrome version 45, you’ll need to use an alternate web browser to load content that requires a NPAPI plugin"1, it seems the move has already taken effect.

1: NPAPI plugins don't work on Chrome version 42 and higher

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    But are you really surprised that Google lied and did whatever the hell it wants regardless of user feedback? If not, then you clearly don’t have much experience with Google (lucky you).
    – Synetech
    Aug 21, 2015 at 14:00

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