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OK, here you go!

It's existed for quite a while, and is in the Mozilla source, just disabled by default.

Not next, Already here...

No, those two are pretty much the same. Perhaps that's why the documentation is confusing you? A web browser is merely a wrapper around the HTML control that provides the "browsing" experience. For your own application, you'd pull up the HTML control whenever you needed it as opposed to using it centrally. Other than that, there really are no differences.

If you're thinking that they're different, perhaps you're only looking for the ActiveX Control? You can get the binaries here. It should work *exactly* like IE.

Answer: as soon as Eisner quit. Make no bones, Jobs (and Roy Disney) hated Eisner, not Disney the company... I'm sure that the new management @ Disney know that Jobs has the advantage here, and well, he has been good for business lately.

Link: http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/story.asp?j=158323 324&p=y583z4x3x

(they have to link statically against the Gecko code, right?)

Nope. Gecko is available as an ActiveX control whose API is the same as IE's.

ActiveX for mozilla/firefox: http://www.iol.ie/~locka/mozilla/plugin.htm Unfortunately it seems there are no version available for 1.0.6, but the 1.0.4 version might work anyway.

There is a plugin (http://www.iol.ie/~locka/mozilla/plugin.htm) for Firefox that allows you to run ActiveX controls, but that doesn't solve the problem. Most sites that use ActiveX also heavily use IE only scripting objects. As such, they still won't run even if you have ActiveX support in Firefox.

Firefox does support ActiveX via this plugin. Not generally considered a good idea to use it, but it is there.

Well, there is the Mozilla ActiveX project. You can embed the Mozilla ActiveX control into any application to add built-in browsing functionality, just like you can with the IE one (shdocvw).

http://www.iol.ie/~locka/mozilla/mozilla.htm

FireFoxView is an extension that lets you click on a link or page and view it in Firefox.

You might also want to try
Mozilla ActiveX control for VB apps.

If Mozilla and IE know what elem.innerHTML is and can render it, why can a screenreader not work like a real goddamned web browser?

Remember that a screen reader has to handle many other applications other than yours: Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, Windows Explorer, all with different Document Object Models, accessibility APIs, data and presentation models... And every new version of Windows changes how the screen reader has to operate. And every new funky application needs some new approach: sure, you can handle HTML, but now here comes Flash and it'll be four years before they address accessibility...

One alternative is to piggy-back on existing applications: I write a web browser for blind people (http://www.webbie.org.uk/) that uses the Microsoft Internet Explorer WebBrowser ActiveX component internally, so it does all the heavy lifting in terms of parsing, handling events and so on. Of course, I still can't do anything about websites that demand that onmouseover is the way to operate their pages! (There is a Mozilla equivalent (http://www.iol.ie/~locka/mozilla/mozilla.htm) but it does not appear to support all the (proprietary?) DOM features I need to use to handle complex websites designed for sighted people.) Even with this component doing all the hard work it's still difficult to present a web page in a way that is usable, not just accessible.

If you're designing a website, remember: blind people will try to use your website and if you help them out you're doing the Right Thing, even if it takes more time and effort. You have printed and other alternatives to the Web: blind people often don't. Only 5% (RNIB UK figures) of print sources get produced in an accessible format. Compare that to billions of (potentially) accessible web pages and you can see how the web can be great for blind people. Please do your bit!

AC: Computers are meant to work for us, not the other way around. Bloody typical Windows mindset.

Want to put Bill out of business?

Create a secure operating system.

The closest one to this goal might be 'NSA-Linux' from our 'friends' at Fort Meade, Maryland, USA.

Its existence won't put a dent in the 'Microsoft monopoly'. However, said 'friends' apparently asked/forced Microsoft to put in a backdoor for them in Windows. Moral of the story: Don't do anything sensitive on Windows period. If you must, use trusted, 3rd party crypto software (or write your own) to encipher your secrets.

Even better and more secure: write your own OS from the boot sector up using only BIOS, CPU-specific machine language, and a 'disk zapper' program that runs in another OS to get you started. Can you write an OS (even a 'toy' one)? I could probably write a 'floppy' based 'toy' OS if I had the time to do it--it would be nowhere near the (abysmal?) quality or have the mass acceptance of the stuff coming out of Microsoft.

Though Windows is a gigantic, insecure kludge of an operating system, it does have one shining plus: backwards compatibility. For example, I have a very good backgammon game programmed back in 1991 that runs on my Windows 2000 PC in 2005 without any problems. Can the same be said of MacOS?

If Apple Computers had the market share that Windows enjoys, Mac-based malware would be 'an unwanted evil that won't go away' and not a curiosity as it is today (anybody got links to documented Apple/Mac-based malware from the wild -- I heard it's out there and the {unscrupulous}Apple/Mac supporters just choose to ignore that it exists.)

Parent is talking about an ActiveX control that allows MSIE to use the Gecko (Mozilla) rendering engine, and not a plugin that enables ActiveX in Mozilla.

I wonder if an OS containing an NSA backdoor would count?

About replacing MS with Gecko: http://www.iol.ie/~locka/mozilla/mozilla.htm

Slightly OT here, but wouldn't it do XUL a world of good to work in IE too? I download and registered the mozilla activex control ( http://www.iol.ie/~locka/mozilla/mozilla.htm ) and I can run XUL apps in IE now (after setting my activex permissions appropriately). The plug-in seems to run XUL apps just fine, and it's a relatively small download. Is there any plan to market/package this activex as a browser plug-in? It seems like you'd get an explosion of XUL apps then, with nearly 100% of the browser market supporting it.

No Active X support (many of our online applications use active X)

Not as user friendly as other browsers (ease of use and clarity issues)

Lack of a real centralized support center (The forums are a rich resource..if you have time to run searches or wait for someone to answer your post, which in a real world environment, is not conducive)

Well, except for when I've had access to really posh support under some extremely-costly contracts, I've always found that forums tend to yield an answer faster than support personnel do, anyway..

But, I did a google for "firefox support contract"; the 3rd result was for http://www.findopensourcesupport.com/, and there are people there apparently willing to support Firefox. I was barely trying and found support contracts offered in a few minutes .. so it's out there.

Potential for abuse by students of all age ranges (The tabbed browsing is an exceptional idea! however, most teachers are too sued to window browsing and wouldn't even notice the extra three or four tabs that are in the background hiding god knows what kind of sites from her view.)

Er .. yeah, I guess I have no answer for that. I mean, it's easy to hide an IE window also, and IE7 is coming with tabbed browsing. But if having tabs is really an abuse risk for you, then there's not much that can be done .. I tried a quick search for an extension to disable tabbed browsing, without luck (but I didn't really look very hard.)

Anyway, I hope the info on ActiveX and support was a little helpful to you .. maybe next year (or whenever you review IT policies) you will be able to support mozilla .. at least for teachers or others who can be trusted to use tabs responsibly.

Bottom line: if you're going to evaluate a product's pros and cons critically, as the subject of this discussion suggests, then you have to be realistic and admit that not interoperating with existing standards is a huge con.

Yeah, but then "supporting" all of the problems inherent with ActiveX is also a huge con, as well.

At any rate, since (while I'm obviously not), you seem to be a pro-ActiveX guy, I'd encourange you to check out http://www.iol.ie/~locka/mozilla/mozilla.htm, where you can find a bridge between Netscape-style plugins and ActiveX, that allows Moz, Opera and others to host ActiveX controls (when running on Windows).

I don't think it is a decision to not let you have it at all. It is more of a decision of the need for it compared to the amount of development time. If it is so easy to implement safley then people would already have done it. As a matter of fact some have.

When you are developing a product with the goal of the majority of code being recycled for other platforms, the focuse is on keeping that possible. I doubt someone is sitting in the mozilla development hut flipping us off saying "you'll get nothign and like it." AX is just insecure and takes time away from other important stuff. IF AX was so important, people would just add it and use it. Here is a link from another post with someon who though it was neccesary.

"How could open source applications support ActiveX?"

Ask these guys.

BTW, you REALLY don't understand what ActiveX is. Heh. Non-MS products can open ActiveX plugins.

I pray for the day when some really smart person writes replacement code that will allow a complete switchover from MSIE to Firefox -- that would include all of those APIs and things that third-party software uses to activate the MSIE rendering...it would be a good day for all.

>The only thing preventing Firefox from being used
>for Windows Update is the Mozilla foundations refusal
>to support ActiveX

Google and you shall receive.

>Uh, isn't that a bit, just a tiny bit favoring apple? ...
>First of all, the price could be argued

What's not to favor? I don't believe the price *can* be argued. It could at one time, but not anymore. Once Apple incorporated IDE into their machines the prices have been on par with Intel machines. It's true, it's just the perception of Apples as more expensive that persists. I have a maxed out 12" PowerBook that cost $2k brand new. This is about what I'd expect to pay for a nice Intel laptop with similar specs and is probably quite a bit cheaper than Sony's offering at this level. Apple doesn't offer a $500 WalMart PC, it's true...oh wait, scratch that (and don't gripe: you already *have* a mouse, monitor and keyboard).

>second of all. it seems that you're advocating the FOSS power as a
>base or foundation for an operating system, rather than apple's
>talents.

Where are you drawing the line? If I take this statement at face value, you're advocating homegrown-only development without considering that Apple's talent here might consist of being able to *choose* FOSS power. Microsoft seems to have painted itself into such a corner so that this option is not available to them at all. That's not a good position to be in when your whole stated development methodology revolves around interpreting what customers want. OS X is eating Microsoft's lunch in this regard.

The developer in the article is trying to backtrack out of Microsoft's age-old discourse about IE being part of the OS. Well, now they call it an API, big whoop. Semantics aside, the thing (whatever it's called now) that Microsoft has built to express this API is a security-lacking bug-riddled piece of shit. I don't think anybody would argue that, even if they can't think of a way to change it. Bill or Ballmer should be writing these things, and the fact that they aren't should tell you something.

http://www.iol.ie/~locka/mozilla/plugin.htm

I havn't looked at it much, but it looks interesting. Obviously it won't be as good as IE (I never thought I'd say that!), but it's a start.

I have a binary that already uses IE, can I make it use Mozilla?

Yes, use the IEPatcher tool to patch the original binary

I was unable to find anything open source to do my taxes, and I do not trust my tax data to any company's servers, so using Wine in linux I installed the Windows version of Firefox, the Mozilla plugin for activex and H&R Block's Tax Cut.

Not totally open source, but it worked well for getting taxes done!

Firefox does have ActiveX(tm)(r) support with the help of plugins. I used one at work to access testdirector.

Think it was this one but not sure: clicky

Actually, it's possible. I've patched Winamp to work with the Mozilla ActiveX Control, and was quite surprised when it worked just fine.

The backend of IE's rendering engine is a COM library called mshtml.dll, with a control called WebBrowser, which is documented. This and the items documented here comprise the standard HTML rendering API on Windows. A nice thing about COM is that any interface can be re-implemented. There is a project, Mozilla ActiveX Control, which re-implements WebBrowser and some of the other interfaces using the Mozilla engine. It's designed to be a drop-in replacement for apps that use mshtml, so they can use Mozilla without modification. I've heard that it can be registered as mshtml, replacing IE's rendering engine completely.

Netscape has also traditionally applied the ActiveX Plug-In to its builds. It's probably that, combined with the possibility of viewing pages with Trident that has caused it to become a concern.

Mozilla ActiveX control

"Not just a similar API

An identical one! That's right, the Mozilla control will implement the IWebBrowser and DWebBrowserEvents interfaces that Microsoft have already defined for Internet Explorer."

The IE Patcher Tool will patch existing apps that call the MSHTML engine to call the Gecko engine instead. It doesn't always work, but in many cases it does, removing the dependence on IE and fixing rendering issues.

If you need to do that, just install This

There is an ActiveX plugin for Mozilla browsers.

Have you tried using the Firefox ActiveX plugin?

This comment alone shows how out of touch you are with modern CSS based development

Microsoft is the one out of touch. A lot of the CSS tech demos I've seen on the web do not work in the latest version of Microsoft Internet Explorer, and until there's an official way to install the Mozilla ActiveX control over the Internet...

> the solution is so simple! just make mozilla hook
> in to IE the same way flash does. as a plugin.
> ie's greatest strength of auto installing plugins
> seamlessly would then become its worst enemy!

Actually, that is possible already. Adam Locke's Moz ActiveX control allows you to embed the gecko engine into a page rendered in IE.

http://www.iol.ie/~locka/mozilla/mozilla.htm

> im kidding. but you have to admit, it would be
> pretty funny to do something like that.

Already done, check MOZiE below for ONE example.
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Internet/Browsers/MOZ iE.shtml

There actually is an Active-X plug-in for other browsers. I don't know why you'd want to use it, though... :)

Windows Update is the big reason Firefox users keep having to use Internet Explorer. There's an ActiveX plugin for Firefox out there, but I don't know if (with masquerading the user agent) it will run Windows Update. Anyone tried this? There's also an extension that adds Windows Update to Firefox's Tools menu.

You might want the Mozilla ActiveX Plug-in.

All: He say day, he say day-ay-ay-o

This one is from Belgium.

You see, we belgians aint all that bad :)

Yes, that's possible (hell, it happened to me yesterday with a questionairre thing from Nokia, itsaid to "upgrade" to IE6 or Netscape, but changing the UserAgent fixed that), but a lot of corp "web-based" stuff is ActiveX and changing the UserAgent won't help that, although there was an ActiveX extension for Firefox, I think it's dead now as it says on the site it doesn't support Firefox 0.9 or 1.0.

As sacreligious as it is, I think Firefox should have a plugin that allows Active X to run, but set-up so that only certain URLs as provided by the user allow this.

It has.
http://www.iol.ie/~locka/mozilla/plugin.htm#downlo ad
In fact, I'm using it in my firefox right now, listening to embedded midi's :)

And yes, it ONLY enables windows media player. All other activex plugins have to be inserted by hand.

> But the big thing stopping us from going to Firefox
> completely is our damn intranet apps. We've poured
> millions into these half-assed ActiveX programs that
> require IE.

This project allows you to host ActiveX controls in Mozilla-based browsers:

http://www.iol.ie/~locka/mozilla/plugin.htm

I used it a few years ago to access an IE-only corporate intranet and it worked well, you might want to check it out.

--Phil.

Mmm, yes, sad. I can feel myself getting a little misty even as I type this.

In other news, mass murderer Osama Bin Laden released a new tape today, confirming he is alive and and kicking and intent upon more mass murdering; x people got blown up in Iraq today, where x is a real number between 10 and 300; The Sudanese are starving; and N. Korea and Iran will probably have a shitload of nukes by the end of the decade.

Goddamn those bastards at Nvidia for needlessly adding to the world's sadness.

You can run Mozilla as a Active X control in IE.

http://www.iol.ie/~locka/mozilla/mozilla.htm/

Now how does your head hurt? :)

here ya go, one activex mozilla plugin. Anything else I can help ya with?

ActiveX for Mozilla (Seamonkey and Firefox). Is it any good? I haven't tried it.