why does ebay now keep asking to run silverlight

[Rob 2,999]

As the topic says. What is it and why does it do it? Is it some sort of spying program or what? I block it and it goes away, but haven't found what doesn't work yet. Ideas anyone. If superfluous, how do I stop it annoying me as it has been doing it for weeks now? i.e. how do I send it into the bin? Ta

[Peckris 579]

As the topic says. What is it and why does it do it? Is it some sort of spying program or what? I block it and it goes away, but haven't found what doesn't work yet. Ideas anyone. If superfluous, how do I stop it annoying me as it has been doing it for weeks now? i.e. how do I send it into the bin? Ta

Silverlight was Microsoft's attempt to rival Adobe's Flash. From what I understand it was a better player (it couldn't be any worse!) but it's kind of faded in recent times, not having taken off as MS hoped. I have no idea why eBay are insisting on it - they aren't to me. You do have Flash installed, right?

[Rob 2,999]

No idea if I have flash. how do I tell?

I haven't seen anything that doesn't work over and above the usual problems like the internet cutting out for a few minutes every hour or so.

Edited January 24, 2015 by Rob

[Peckris 579]

No idea if I have flash. how do I tell?

If you can play videos, and you see the content on every website including adverts ( ) then I would say you have Flash.

[Rob 2,999]

OK, must have it as the German comedy thread videos work. Just ignore it, I guess. Thanks. One of the kids put 'Ad blocker' on, which is good for adverts apparently, i.e. you don't see them.

[sound 25]

OK, must have it as the German comedy thread videos work. Just ignore it, I guess. Thanks. One of the kids put 'Ad blocker' on, which is good for adverts apparently, i.e. you don't see them.

Glad I'm not the only one that needs the kids ( grandchildren) to sort me out.LOL

M

[Prax 80]

Hi Rob,

We all know that Ebay has starting using ads on its pages. For someone who opens 40 ebay item pages in one go this gets really slow and crashes the browser.

http://i.imgur.com/JqRkvRc.png

Personally I feel I have to kill the Flash program to get any work down. Else the screen freezes. Also I have noticed that opening a single ebay item page causes the browser to run like a dog. So what I do is open all 40 or 50 item pages I want to view. Then kill the flash program http://i.imgur.com/gHMOrPW.png

I used WAPT to shech how bad my system performance is on opening an ebay item page. The results show that there is a 13% drop in performance on opening a single item description page. I am not sure Silverlight would be a better choice. Given that I dont like the ads, I cant see why I should give ebay the chance to enhance the visual experience of something that I don't give a rat's arse about.

FYI I block Silverlight too.

Prax

[Nick 325]

Given that I dont like the ads, I cant see why I should give ebay the chance to enhance the visual experience of something that I don't give a rat's arse about.

You could add "Adblock Plus" as an extension to Firefox. That would help to preserve some system resources.

[Nick 325]

As the topic says. What is it and why does it do it? Is it some sort of spying program or what? I block it and it goes away, but haven't found what doesn't work yet. Ideas anyone. If superfluous, how do I stop it annoying me as it has been doing it for weeks now? i.e. how do I send it into the bin? Ta

You could try disabling the Firefox Silverlight plug-in. Using the icon with three horizontal bars (top right corner) click on "Add-ons" then "Plugins" on the left hand side menu. Scroll down to find Silverlight and change from "Ask to Activate" to "Never Activate".

[Prax 80]

Nice one Nick will do it rightaway

[TomGoodheart 373]

I too block Flash. I also block active-X and most add-ons. It's easy enough to switch them on if you want to watch a video or whatever.

The thing that bemuses me about eBay adverts is that they are often for things I've just bought or searched for. I buy something from Amazon then I get the same thing popping up for the next few days on eBay.

How stupid is that? Can they not see that if I've just bought something I'm rather unlikely to want to buy it again straight away? Do they employ idiots or .. oh, wait ...

.

[Peckris 579]

Hi Rob,

We all know that Ebay has starting using ads on its pages. For someone who opens 40 ebay item pages in one go this gets really slow and crashes the browser.

http://i.imgur.com/JqRkvRc.png

Personally I feel I have to kill the Flash program to get any work down. Else the screen freezes. Also I have noticed that opening a single ebay item page causes the browser to run like a dog. So what I do is open all 40 or 50 item pages I want to view. Then kill the flash program http://i.imgur.com/gHMOrPW.png

I used WAPT to shech how bad my system performance is on opening an ebay item page. The results show that there is a 13% drop in performance on opening a single item description page. I am not sure Silverlight would be a better choice. Given that I dont like the ads, I cant see why I should give ebay the chance to enhance the visual experience of something that I don't give a rat's arse about.

FYI I block Silverlight too.

Prax

I had the same issue in Safari on my Mac. Then I found a extension which blocks all plug-ins but leaves its window there just grey with HTML5 or FLASH on top. If you click the window, the content then downloads. Which means you can ignore ALL ads!

[Rob 2,999]

As the topic says. What is it and why does it do it? Is it some sort of spying program or what? I block it and it goes away, but haven't found what doesn't work yet. Ideas anyone. If superfluous, how do I stop it annoying me as it has been doing it for weeks now? i.e. how do I send it into the bin? Ta

You could try disabling the Firefox Silverlight plug-in. Using the icon with three horizontal bars (top right corner) click on "Add-ons" then "Plugins" on the left hand side menu. Scroll down to find Silverlight and change from "Ask to Activate" to "Never Activate".

Big plus for this tip. It also has a box which allows pdf files to always activate, which is a much better idea than always being asked if I want to open a pdf. (I invariably do - that is why I have tried to open it in the first place)

[Mr T 169]

The thing that bemuses me about eBay adverts is that they are often for things I've just bought or searched for. I buy something from Amazon then I get the same thing popping up for the next few days on eBay.

.

What I find absolutely confusing is eBay's regular emails which ask me if I'm still interested in items I have already bought.