Microsoft Silverlight

While I totally agree with the fact that it should be available without plugins as you said, I have to simply respond with "Wouldn't they?"

Lets face it. If you NEED to use their website, and they tell you to do it you HAVE to install Silverlight, that seems like a great way to push up their install base. I mean, this is coming from the company who is reporting "Over a hundred million Vista licenses sold" but neglect to state thats just licenses issued, not installed and working userbase, which is far more interesting to me considering how many people say they bought a machine then "Upgraded to XP"

Especially since the vast majority of users are just going to see it say "You need Silverlight to do this, install? (Y/n)" And the trained monkey in them are just gonna say, "Oh, I need this? Ok".