Silverlight Alternative?

DagazaGZ said:

Is there an alternative to Silverlight? ...

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Silverlight is Microsoft's alternative to Adobe's Flash. It is proprietary software. There is no opensource clone of Silverlight. With reports that Microsoft intends to drop it, there may be no motivation to clone it.

More to the point--Do you have or do you suspect a problem with Silverlight? You appear to be freaking-out over the fact that Silverlight is consuming 8.6% of your CPU. At 8.6%, there is simply no way that you can claim that the software is hogging your CPU. As a general proposition, you should not freak-out over numbers that you do not understand. You are running MacOS X, not System 7 or Windows 95. Left to its own devices, your OS does a fantastic job of taking care of itself.

Chill.

It sounds to me like you are running short of hard drive space. You should maintain at least 10% [many say 15%] of your hard drive as free space. Otherwise, your UNIX virtual memory system will not have enough headroom and performance suffers.

Absent evidence to the contrary, this sounds exactly like your problem.

DagazaGZ said:

That would make sense if I wasn't only using 190 GB of 1 TB. Can you not see the pic where it says I only have 159 mb of ram/memory available? That fluctuates to about 20 mb free then all goes to ****. I'm going to be upgrading to 12 GB memory however the usage of safari and silverlight shouldn't be so high.

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Inactive memory is also available for apps to use, so at the time of that screen shot you are not close to running out of memory.

From your perspective, a user browsing the web, your alternative to Silverlight is to not use it... You can try uninstalling it (google around). However, if you need to visit sites that use Silverlight for something critical to you, then I'm afraid you're stuck with it.

You can also try restarting your browser occasionally which hopefully will cause the silverlight process to restart as well, freeing memory at least until you start using it again.

DagazaGZ said:

That would make sense if I wasn't only using 190 GB of 1 TB. Can you not see the pic where it says I only have 159 mb of ram/memory available? That fluctuates to about 20 mb free then all goes to ****. I'm going to be upgrading to 12 GB memory however the usage of safari and silverlight shouldn't be so high.

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You are a worry-wort in search of a problem. To confirm that you have a problem, you are willing to spend money that can be put to better use for a solution to your non-existent problem.

If I thought that it would do any good, then I would recommend that you stop reading Activity Monitor lists and attend to your work. Unfortunately, it will do no good. Therefore, I will not bother.

You seem to have come to the conclusion already, but just to reiterate, there is no alternative to Silverlight.

However, it might be worth giving the Silverlight 5 beta a try.

MisterMe seems to not understand how computers work, let alone Flash and Silverlight. I'm not sure why he is commenting at all.

Both Silverlight and Flash eat up my memory. Earlier today I had to kill Safari while it was running and consuming nearly 1.5GB of memory.

I wish they weren't such memory whores. I upgraded to 8GB just so I don't have to restart or kill apps as often.

Even if there were an alternative, it wouldn't matter as it is up to the content provider and which platform they choose to put their media on. Our best hope is for more websites to use HTML5 video. Real video formats will be processed hardware side using less resources and power, while Flash and Silverlight do this in software, using up lots of resources and power.

Edit: Besides waiting for more HTML5 video, you can kill your web browsers, Flash, and Silverlight processes more often, or you can do a memory upgrade. On my MacBook Pro, I got 8gb for around $100 on Amazon.

The issue should not return that quickly on a new iMac. Maybe restart it instead. I restart my laptop about once a week. Still, it seems odd you'd have trouble that frequently. Do you have a poor internet connection? Have you ruled out that?

Based on your image though, you may be using your computer in a way that a memory upgrade would help. General rule of thumb: Do NOT buy memory, or hard drive upgrades from Apple. You'll pay 2-10 times the price it should cost. I got my memory (for MacBook Pro) from Amazon, you just have to search around, then verify your model. Here's another site: http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/apple/memory/iMac .

An article about if you need more memory or not:
http://osxdaily.com/2010/10/29/does-your-mac-need-more-memory-how-to-know-if-you-need-a-ram-upgrade/

Here's how to replace the RAM if you decide to go that route:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1423

Apple puts their label on it and sells it for much more. Apple isn't the manufacturer they just resale it. If you don't like that site, go through Amazon or search around.

Corsair, Kingston, and Crucial are 3 well known RAM makers. You'll see no difference in performance nor will you have problems.

Don't take my word for it though, search around.

GL.

Don't have anything like you do with silverlight... not sure why you do. Try reinstalling maybe (doubt it would help). Anyways, in regards to your memory, you technically have the inactive + free available to use so don't let the 159MB throw you off. I really cannot give you a straight answer to your problem... just try reinstalling it or maybe check for updates to see if you have an older version. Also, stop freaking out (all of you) - why does everyone have to fight over a simple issue?

Yea, when I mentioned I don't have anything like you, I meant that when I use netflix I don't have the same issue. Well - sucks to be you.

chris.robison said:

MisterMe seems to not understand how computers work, let alone Flash and Silverlight. I'm not sure why he is commenting at all.

Both Silverlight and Flash eat up my memory. ....

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Nonsense. All running tasks consume a finite amount of memory. However, many users who think they know something [but don't] about memory labor under the delusion that they can somehow outrun their computer's appetite for memory. They can't. MacOS X is not System 7 or Windows 95. You can't manually allocate or limit your applications' memory usage. MacOS X is a preemptive multitasking virtual memory operating system. The OS handles memory allocation, not the user. Free memory is wasted memory. The OS allocates all available RAM to the running tasks. Just because you have 16 GB of RAM installed does not mean that the OS will not use virtual memory. It will.

Misconceptions to the contrary, your RAM is not the cause of the choppiness in your Flash or Silverlight video. Heck, my primary computer is a 2 GHz Power Mac G5 (2 GB RAM) and have absolutely no problem with compatible Flash or Silverlight. On my 2.93 GHz MacBook Pro 17" (4 GB RAM) running the latest releases of Flash and Silverlight, I have no problems at all.

If you have a problem, then your problem is local to your setup. It is not generic to your software.

If he sees a direct correlation with his memory usage and Netflix slowdown, who are you to say he is wrong?

I have had the same problem from time to time. Flash and Silverlight DO take up immense resources over time and can lead to slow down. I'm not sure why you are arguing against that. I've experienced it. I agree the OS is great and handles memory allocation well...most of the time. It doesn't mean if you have too many things going or going for too long that they won't steal that memory from you. Geez louise.

Also, I provided him with an article to see if he needed more memory. I agree it could be other problems, but he also provided a screenshot and said Netlfix slows down when memory usage is full. So...