[lpghatguy]

Once upon a time, Flash, Java, Silverlight, ActiveX, etc. ruled the web.

I think the world is _much_ better off today, with a common language and platform. I don't think those big third party runtimes could survive in the browser in today's threat environment.

[exabrial]

Unfortunately "common" means being what Google wants, and they abuse their market position to push whatever through (advertising support in an HTML client... what?)