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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.'"
And my good pal Satan didn't even get a call from Billy boy?
:)
Just kidding, I am glad that this is the first positive sign that MS is taking Mozilla seriously.
Although they could have a trick up their sleeve.
First impression of this is positive though
Second impression is that they might break Firefox stuff on purpose to bring people back to IE, but that's the cynic in me.
This is the sig that says NI (again)
This can only be good news. Just last night, lack of ability to get downloads easily from Microsoft cost someone else (a small games publisher needing a recent DirectX version) money, as my other half and I gave up on the hassle of downloading from MS, and therefore didn't pay to download the puzzle game in question either. We both have 100% legal installations of Windows on our machines, and she was willing to pay the small asking price for a simple puzzle game she found enjoyable. Everyone lost.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
This is very usefull. Suppose you have a system where IE is heavily infected with spyware, but you do have a firefox installed. At least you can leave IE unused to get some of the necessary service packs for your windows system by using this alternative browser. Everytime I use firefox on windows to help somebody out, I still have to start IE to use the Microsoft tools to update a part of the system. The rest of the Microsoft site always worked very good in mozilla anyway (at least, I never ran into any problems, then again I am running linux fulltime since 2000, and before that 50% of the time, so I am probably not the most representitive user of the Microsoft website)
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
A firefox plugin that enables ActiveX. I'll be sure to download that!
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. Just now I'm noticing that macromedia is poping up an icon in my system tray! Hello?, it's a browser plugin. It should only do stuff within the browser!
I am sorry but this is not all that surprising given the amount of anti-monopoly litigation in Europe and in the States. It cost less money to develop the code than get slapped with another huge fine.
... until they start fixing some glaring bugs in Windows. I've got a legal copy of Windows XP, but the only reason I do is because it came with my laptop, and the only reason I got a laptop with Windows included is because it was crazy on sale. Were I buying a machine now, I'd get an Asus z70va and slap a pirate copy on it.
This machine has 1.25 GiB of RAM. Most of the time when I try to hibernate it -- if I've ever run anything memory-intensive, whether or not it's still open -- I get an "Insufficient resources to complete the API" error, and it doesn't hibernate. (I have about 30 GB of disk free, so that is most certainly not the issue).
There are all sorts of glaring flaws in Windows. Do I really care if I get access to the shit on Windows Update (Ooh, new version of Windows Media Player that probably still won't play oggs without me having to mess with codecs)? Not really. Security updates? Yay, I'll lose my install of Guild Wars, at worse, if someone gets past my firewall and "4dminist4t0r5" (doesn't quite sound like "r00ts", but whatever) it. 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.
When Windows Update works like emerge, I might consider using it.
Do I really want ActiveX components running free in Firefox?
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Given that mozilla is open source , you'd have thought they'd have supported
an open source OS. I can't see why it should be an issue porting to linux , after
all , the only difference is in the draw-to-screen API. ANyone know why its
not supported?
I have read here that Google is paying a dollar for everyone you can get to switch from IE to Firefox. Is this true? Any Slashdotters acually made any money from this?
I'll be interested to see what Microsoft is going to do in Vista to try to spoil things for Firefox. My guess is even further integration of IE into Windows, and lots of stuff that doesn't even feel like you're using IE will actually be through their browser. Also, they're going to try to get more lock-in on the corporate intranet rather than the public web.
It's about this site ==> https://pfs.mozilla.org/plugins/
I loaded it on both IE6 & Firefox(1.0.2)
Strangely, it renders very differently on the 2 browsers.
It renders much better on IE.
What's the story?
...and already found a stupid bug. =p
Try installing Firefox/Mozilla/Whatever Mozilla-compatible browser you use in a non-standard installation folder (i.e. NOT [root]:\[Program files folder]\Mozilla [Firefox]) and try installing the plugin; it won't even ask you to look for the damn correct directory and blow up in mid-installation. XD
This is why I love Microsoft: Unsurpassable jokes every now and then. =p
120 char limit? How the hell am I supposed to cram my favorite sig quote and make it fit in here? =p
If one was so inclined, could a ficticious person download and grab the code from a validated machine and paste it in from an unvalidated machine?
Just out of curiosity you understand..
liqbase
Whats interesting is that the plugin for firefox is an ActiveX application. WMP installs some kind of ActiveX functionality into firefox (on the sly).
Just a moment ago I posted a reply elsewhere in this item. I suggested that installing Microsoft's media player plugin might open a backdoor {BARNdoor} in Mozilla/Firefox (like the one that APPLYING for Sony's rootkit uninstaller opens in IE). This would eliminate the big driver of migration from IE to Mozilla/Firefox: improved security.
I do believe you've found it.
Counting the hours to the first exploit...
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
That microsoft is interested in how many people are actually using a different browser. How much more of a realistic view are they going to see if they don't force everyone to use IE. Or, perhaps this is research to use for more of their FUD.
Yes, I agree I did a bit of karma-whoring to post one or two comments in here according to the group-mentality. Yes, I'm sorry, I got carried on :(
*ahem* Anyway, remember it's the IE7 team doing the Firefox WMP plugins and such. Yes, the same ones that fixed those nasty guillotine bugs that made web programmers' lifes become a nightmare.
So, yes, I support their cross-browser compatibility effort. Now the only thing that worries me is that windows media DRM that can run remote code on your machine.
In the browser wars, the paradigm shift was from the desktop to the web-browser, which was just a container for web-based content. The new container is the media player, folks! MS doesn't really care if you're using FireFox as long as it's Windows Media Player delivering rich content -- including advertising. The battle now is between Flash, Quicktime, Media Player, etc... This is not a magnanimous move by Microsoft, this is a no-nonsense strategy to make sure that Media Player is the container no matter what browser you're using.
There's actually a cool extension similiar to IE View called IE Tab that essentially does just that. Rather than opening up a new window for Internet Explorer, this plugin integrates IE into a tab within Firefox... it's pretty neat.