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Windows Advantage Validation Process On Firefox
GraemeDonaldson writes "According to this IE Blog entry, Microsoft seems to be serious about supporting non-IE browsers. Mention is made of a Windows Media Player plugin for Firefox. The Windows Genuine Advantage validation process now works in Firefox too. From the article: 'Basically, customers said "We want to make sure our PCs are running genuine Windows and have access to all the content on the Microsoft Download Center; the experience when we're running a Mozilla browser is not great. Do something about it." Brad's team did. I think that's a good thing for customers.'"
They would think seriously about supporting openDocument.
They would think seriously about supporting openDocument.
It's called bargaining. "Oh, they support firefox, so they must not be THAT bad".
Now if both browsers and programmers would adhere to the html standards we might actually get somewhere. I'm tired of testing my website in 3 browsers and seeing three different results :(
gasmonso http://religiousfreaks.com/The first sign that MS was accepting mozilla was IE7 and the tabbed browsing.
-- Yes, I work for the government, and yes I am watching you.
In my opinion, they are still far off from that claim. Sure, making Windows updates is a step in the right direction, but they still need to fix things like viewing their news video clips in firefox, as well as supporting tabbed browsing.
My gf has to have her homepage set to MSN, and any time I see something interesting and scroll-wheel click to send it to a new tab, it loads that page in the current tab as well. I know that it's hard to provide support for everything, but MS is trying a little too hard to be incompatable.
Extinguish
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
The slow link response seems to be because IE is generally memory-resident (and smaller) and takes less time to open than Firefox in general (certainly I notice no difference in times between opening a link from Outlook and opening from XChat or whatever), so I'm not convinced this is really an issue of their bias.
The updates use controls that wouldn't go on Firefox because they'd be deemed unsafe (I believe there's a plugin to make them work, I wouldn't recommend it though). The best way for Microsoft to get around this would be to stop relying on a browser at all for Windows Updates, which is basically what they've done by "forcing" Automatic Updates (which isn't browser-based) on in XP SP2.
My first thoughts were quite the opposite, to be honest.
:)
Before, when IE was the only browser that could be used to update, they didn't really know how many people were using Firefox. Well, I guess they did with microsoft.com and the other sites, so I take that back.
Anywho, my point is this: now they don't have to worry about relying on other surveys to determine how many people are using Firefox. They can work it out themselves and from there, determine the actual threat to their browser base.
Having said all of that, I would hazard a guess and say that non-IE users are more likely to check for updates and the like, so I don't really know. Alternatively, they've scrapped the source base for IE7 and skinned Firefox, so they need it to work for IE7 to work
Just throwing it out there...
The reason they are suddenly changing their tune is because they believe that the industry may be switching to LIVE SERVICES. If your service (such as Excel Live) doesn't work in one browser because you chose not to follow industry standards, that will mean that people will use another service.
Microsoft is afraid of people trying others services so they will want to make sure that they build code that is interoperable with other browsers especially now that Firefox has anywhere from 10-25% of the market share.
They can't afford to ignore other browsers now.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
Perhaps the monopolist is starting to get the point.
1) Embrace
2) Extend
3) Extinguish
Steps 1 and 2 are now in place. In this case it's Mozilla/Firefox that gets embraced and extended, but what gets extinguished is open-source media formats.
By making a Mozilla plugin for their media product they reduce the pressure on content providers to supply content in other formats.
Meanwhile, any bets on whether / when use of the plugin starts "accidentally" introducing vulnerabilities into Mozilla that are exploitable during ordinary browsing? (Something like the backdoor {BARNdoor} you install in IE when you APPLY to obtain the full removal tool for Sony's rootkit?) And there goes security, the main driver of migration from IE to Mozilla.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
"Oh, they support firefox, so they must not be THAT bad".
Not to mention that if no one downloads it they can say "Well, people who don't use open source apps don't want support from Microsoft," and then drop the WMP plugin and use that as an excuse to not support OpenDocument.Zagreus sits inside your head, Zagreus lives among the dead, Zagreus sees you in your bed and eats you in your sleep.
How did the parent get modded up?
... until they start fixing some glaring bugs in Windows
They did http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=330909 fix this bug, a long time ago with SP2, or with the individual update released about two months ago.
Do I really care if I get access to the shit on Windows Update .
The irony here is palpable. You don't care about getting updates, then complain that MS isn't fixing their bugs.
When Windows Update works like emerge, I might consider using it.
WTF? Take a stroll into the Control Panel and set your Windows Update to "Idiot" and you won't have to do a thing. Complaining about MS is one thing, but bitching about stuff they're doing right when you obvioulsy haven't taken the time to do 30 seconds of googling is just pitiful.
You know, alot of the comments here show that the "groupthink tools" mentality has really sunk in here. For Christ sakes, they are changing something that people bitch about here, only for people to COMPLETELY SIDE STEP WHAT THE DISCUSSION IS ABOUT and bitch about other things unrelated to it, just to fluff their epeen on anything anti-MS. I am glad to see that some people are actually saying something positive, ie that Microsoft is actually...um, you know...playing fair and recognizing they have competition. Thank you for helping support insightful discussions (which my post certainly is not! :))
Does this mean they'll also commit to a Mac version of WMP that doesn't absolutely suck? I'm not holding my breath.
"if Microsoft doesn't make it really easy for these people to patch their systems they probably won't patch their systems and then the security and stability of their system will degrade."
I claim BS in this statement. If Microsoft were really interested in a system being patched why are they using the patch system to check for "authenticity"? Microsoft will always be a menace to networking as long as this stance is held. I can see checking authenticity for upgrades or newer products discounts but for critical patches that protect everyone around them is a silly and in my view malicious act against others on the net.
DISCLAIMER: I don't do Windows but see the effects of all those who do in the form of spam zombies, worms, and other M$ nastiness.
B.
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
This is one of those situations where you really hope the grandparent will develop humor sense some day...
(Note to grammar nazis: I'm not a native english speaker and I'm not sure about the 'will' conjugation in the above sentence. What's wrong?)
16,777,216 comments ought to be enough for any forum!
When are they going to fix the way Outlook Web Access runs on non-IE browsers? The current non-IE OWA is a 1990's-era frame-based piece of crap that lacks any ability to spell-check emails or search mailboxes. And they try to pass it off as a state-of-the-art web-based email client. What a joke.
...isn't great, either. When will it occur to them to do something about that?
I think Microsoft is suffering from terminal Big Company Disease, the situation in which a company loses focus on serving the customer and starts to obey the Three Laws of Necrotics:
1) First Law: hurt the competition. This is more important than anything else.
2) Second Law: don't cannibalize any of your own products, so long as this does not conflict with the First Law.
3) Third Law: Serve the customer, so long as this does not conflict with the First or Second law, and can be done in any spare time left over after dealing with more important priorities
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Yeah! Increasing competition and lowering prices? How could ANY company say no to that!?
The opinions stated herein do not necessarily represent those of anybody at all. Deal with it.
Ooh, new version of Windows Media Player that probably still won't play oggs without me having to mess with codecs
And I bet it won't play Quicktime files either without having to mess with codecs! Or a bazillion other formats! Your "point" is completely and utterly invalid.
since Microsoft *still* doesn't have an ext3 filesystem driver, it's safe from the kiddies.
That's not MS's job, and there's been an ext2 IFS available for some time now. It's not their fault that you didn't install it.
When Windows Update works like emerge, I might consider using it.
It does. By default as of SP2. You don't have SP2 installed? Again -- not their fault. MS has actually tried harder to get SP2 rolled out than any previous service pack. If you don't have it installed it's completely your own fault.
There are certainly some problems with Windows, but so far you've only mentioned IO (Idiot Operator) errors.
All my *important* stuff is on the Linux half of this machine, and since Microsoft *still* doesn't have an ext3 filesystem driver, it's safe from the kiddies.
It isn't Microsoft's responsibility to supply a ext3 file system driver. It's ours (the Linux geeks), and we did. Here it is: http://sourceforge.net/projects/ext2fsd
If someone can root your box, they can install this driver, so your Linux stuff is not safe from kiddies, never was.
Edith Keeler Must Die
"I use firefox as much to avoid the heavy-handed control Microsoft and other corporations are trying to exert over how my PC should operate."
... You install a Microsoft operating system and expect it not to control how your PC should operate? What exactly do you think an "Operating System" is supposed to do?
Humm
Do you have an updated link to that cracked .dll ? Every version I have found was put on rapidshare and has since been taken down. You could just zip it up and post a link to another upload and do it as anon.
(1) Open IE
(2) Go to Tools -> Manage Add-ons
(3) Pull up "Add-ons that have been used by Internet Exploder"
(4) Select the Windows Genuine Advantage radioActiveX entry, flag it disabled.
(5) You can now update Windows using Windows Update.
I know it sounds unbeleivable such a retarded "security" measure to prevent users from accessing Windoze Update.