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Protect Your PC: Experts Warn Against These 8 Windows Programs, Including Silverlight

Get rid of outdated programs, bloatware and junk that affect your PC's performance.

Mireia Fernández

Mireia Fernández

  • Updated:

Silverlight is an application development platform created by Microsoft. It emerged as an alternative to Flash and was once widely used by streaming content sites. However, with the passage of time and the arrival of HTML 5, Silverlight has passed away, being used by only 0.02% of web pages. Even so, this Microsoft application is still taking up space on most computers, so why not uninstall it?

Similar to Silverlight, many unnecessary programs have become zombies on every Windows 10 and 11 computer. These are basically divided into bloatware and outdated apps that are still installed by default on every PC. To help you free up space and protect your data, in today’s article we’re going to give you a selection of Windows apps that you should uninstall. We hope they help!

Protect Your PC: Experts Warn Against These 8 Windows Programs, Including Silverlight
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1. QuickTime

A few years ago, if you wanted to enjoy high quality videos, you had to turn to QuickTime. The MOV format coined by Apple offered not only high image quality, but also high sound quality. To open this type of file, it was advisable to use the QuickTime video player. However, in 2016 TrendMicro announced that the popular video player was full of vulnerabilities that could put users’ computers and data at risk.

Given Apple’s refusal to make any changes to the QuickTime player for Windows, it is advisable to uninstall this programme from any PC. Does that mean you have to give up the MOV format? Of course not! As an alternative, we recommend using VLC Media Player, an exceptional free media player that allows you to play this and any other format without any problems.

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2. Adobeflash

Adobe Flash was killed off in January 2021 when it was blocked by the majority of browsers on the market. Poor security, a long history of vulnerabilities, poor performance and high battery usage were just a few of the key factors in saying goodbye to the plug-in. If you still have it installed, we recommend that you remove it from your computer right now. Don’t know how? We explain it step-by-step in our guide to uninstalling Adobe Flash.

3. Adobe ShockWave

In a similar way to Flash, the ShockWave plugin is no longer supported by Adobe in 2019. It can no longer be downloaded from Adobe’s website and virtually no websites still use this service. We know that if you are nostalgic and love Flash games, it is hard to say goodbye to these classics. However, both Flash and ShockWave are useless nowadays, except for leaving an open door on your PC for possible malware.

4. Microsoft Silverlight

As we mentioned at the beginning of this article, Silverlight is a web application development platform designed to run rich Internet pages. As a product of Microsoft, it enjoyed strong popularity until the plugin was no longer needed with the arrival of HTML5. The main browsers on the market (Chrome, FireFox and Edge) are incompatible with Silverlight and you can only access it with the old Internet Explorer (which was abandoned by Microsoft this past 2022).

5. Java

Java is another classic, essential some years ago but that nowadays, it doesn’t make much sense to have installed. It is made up of two components: a desktop version and another as a plugin for your browser. Nowadays there are hardly any pages compatible with Java and browsers such as Chrome or Firefox do not accept this plugin. In the past, Java has been at the centre of some security scandals, so if you want to keep your data safe, you should consider uninstalling Java.

6. Programmes to improve the performance of your computer

If your computer is slow or not running as smoothly as before, you may have been tempted by cleaners or programmes to improve your PC’s performance. All of them are advertised as a panacea and claim that in just a few minutes, your computer will be back up and running as fast as it did on the first day. However, most of them fall into two main categories: those that are useless and those that can damage your computer even more. We recommend that you be wary of all programs capable of making changes to the Windows registry. Or better yet, remove them from your PC.

7. Bloatware from your PC or laptop manufacturers

When buying a computer, especially if it is a laptop, manufacturers tend to fill your new computer with all kinds of bloatware and unnecessary programs. Dell, HP, Lenovo, Toshiba… nobody is spared from this practice. These apps are usually clones of those that you already find in the Windows installation, such as programs for editing photos, games, etc. However, when deleting them, make sure you keep the ones that automatically update your PC’s drivers, plugins and BIOS.

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8. Windows 10 and 11 bloatware

Believe it or not, Windows includes in its installation a good number of programs and applications that have little to do with the proper functioning of your PC. Most of these take the form of video games such as Candy Crush Saga or Solitaire & Casual Games or entertainment and information apps such as News, Money, Sports or Weather. If you’re not a console user, you won’t need the Xbox stick or its companion. It is therefore recommended that you take stock of these Microsoft apps and uninstall all those you don’t use.

9. Useless toolbars and extensions

We end our article by focusing on Internet browsers. They accumulate a lot of junk that affects the performance of our computer in the form of toolbars and extensions that are of no use whatsoever. Despite the fact that in recent years Chrome has removed a large number of malicious extensions from its Web Store that only consumed system resources, there is still a lot of work to do. Have you checked yours?

We recommend that you open the browser you use on a daily basis and check if there are any toolbars installed. To recognise them, simply look at the top of the browser and see if you have a small section with its own search box and the logo of Google (Google Toolbar), Bing (Bing Toolbar), Yahoo! (Yahoo Toolbar), etc. Also check your browser extensions and if in doubt, uninstall any that you don’t recognise or don’t use often.

Get rid of all these programmes now

We hope that this article will help you when it comes to uninstalling programs that do little for Windows, apart from taking up space on your hard drive and slowing down your operating system. Don’t be afraid to remove them, because if you regret it later, you can always reinstall them.

Still, we recommend that from time to time you take a look at your hard drive for any applications that have settled on your system and are not performing any function. Believe it or not, many of them can become a major security hole used by hackers.

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Mireia Fernández

Mireia Fernández

Mireia Fernández es una apasionada del mundo de los videojuegos y las nuevas tecnologías cuya afición se remonta al MSX HB 501p de su niñez. Nacida y residente en Barcelona, Mireia lleva más de 10 años ejerciendo como editora y está especializada en la redacción de análisis, tutoriales y guías de software así como también en darlo todo para tratar de publicar noticias antes que nadie. Entre sus aficiones está pasar horas y horas jugando con la consola, pasear a su golden retriever y mantenerse al día de las novedades del mundo SEO.

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