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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.'"
What happens if you are running a pirated copy of Firefox?
Office Updates? Microsoft Updates? Slow link response in Outlook (and other Office apps) if non-IE browser is default? There still is a ways to go for Microsoft before they can claim they are supporting browsers other than their own.
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!
'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.'"
Yeah, I installed this Windows the other day, had some sort of goofy foot for a start menu, Office didn't install, and I couldn't get any of my games to work. I'm glad now there is a way I can see if I actually have genuine Windows, and not that fake Windows going around.
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.
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
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! :))