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Microsoft Update Quietly Installs Firefox Extension
hemantm writes "A routine security update for a Microsoft Windows component installed on tens of millions of computers has quietly installed an extra add-on for an untold number of users surfing the Web with Mozilla's Firefox Web browser."
at the same time it was Firefox that quietly allowed it to happen. "I admit that maybe I missed the point", he said as he rushed home to check his Windows machine.
I noticed this on a work machine and read about it last week. Instead of trying to manually remove the extension (the Uninstall button is disabled for this one and only extension) I simply disabled it. Starting that same day, the machine (2.3 Ghz dual core Vista with 4 GB RAM) has begun locking up hard when using Firefox. This doesn't happen with IE or any other software. It locked up 5 times on me with Firefox within 1 hour, and has not locked up at all since then, as I have not used Firefox. It is abundantly clear the problem is related to Firefox, and the only thing I did with Firefox was disable the extension and restart.
Has anyone else experienced anything like this after disabling the .NET extension? I'm curious how deeply this extension hooks into the OS and if it is capable of freezing up the entire OS. Firefox, on its own, should not be capable of locking up the entire machine.
Better known as 318230.
They sure have patent on breaking other people's SW interacting with their SW (Office formats, MS Java, Grub/Lilo support, ... ) so how about giving them little bit of their own medicine? (Breaking .NET plugin with next Firefox update). I know, I know, not gonna happen...
839*929
What is annoying is that it's installed without warnings or questions asked. The good part may be that it provides (or could provide) some functionality and M$ is finally acknowledging the percentage of Firefox users out there.
I've seen the way they "acknowledge" competitors before. I like Firefox; that's why I'd prefer they keep ignoring it.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Then this is a problem with Firefox, not IE, that it let's plugins be installed through the filesystem without user intervention. At the least it should warn upon next start that "Blah has been installed, do you want to enable it?"
When you have access to the filesystem, and I assume Windows Update runs with full privileges, you can do whatever the hell you want. If MS really wanted to, they could be replacing libraries in the Firefox folder. In many ways this is similar to the argument that if a hacker has physical access to the machine, you're toast.
Having said that, a number of Linux distros have taken to including certain addons optionally or by default with a Firefox install. I don't really want to see this feature taken away and there is a very real purpose...to make mass management of Firefox installations easier.
Once you start despising the jerks, you become one.
I'm just thinking that if this update is making Registry changes, then the plug-in is Windows-only, and it means that Firefox users on Windows will now have a different browsing experience than Firefox users of other platforms.
So, the plug-in accomplishes two things for Microsoft: 1) it promotes the .NET platform to a wider audience, and 2) it promotes Windows as being the superior OS to run Firefox in.
It's a win-win scenario for Microsoft. Firefox can continue to gain marketshare, but Microsoft will have their tentacles in it, making sure that the adoption of Firefox does not lead to a platform-agnostic world. And it rewards the .NET developers for investing in Microsoft-only technologies.
Actually I can explain EXACTLY why it crashed, as being a PC repair guy off and on since Win3.xx I have had much experience in the area. I can also explain why yours worked and mine didn't.
You see the main difference between Win98SE and WinME was .VXDs VS WDM. I would bet if you had that machine and looked at the drivers that ALL the drivers were WDM. You were what we in the biz called "lucky bastards" because nearly all the OEMs just used the same VXDs that were SUPPOSED to be supported in WinME, or even worse like mine ended up this horrible fucking mess with half of the older drivers being VXD and half the newer being WDM. You see, in WinME in my experience VXD and WDM just don't play nice together. In fact they hate each other and will happily kill themselves and the OS with it due to conflicts.
So you see grasshopper, you were one of the lucky bastards that got a machine with WDM only drivers. MSFT in their infinite stupidity said that WinME could use both, so many OEMs(like that damned HP which is STILL running not ten feet from me with a rock solid Win2K) didn't bother writing drivers for their older chipsets. Instead they just reused the Win98SE drivers while only writing drivers for the newer hardware as WDM. That was a recipe for total disaster and why you could set your watch by how fast mine crash. The video chip was WDM, the audio VXD, and the network and modem was one of each. So it wasn't FUD, it was MSFT releasing an OS which really didn't support the drivers they say it did. If you had all WDM you were good. All VXD and you had about a 60/40% chance at being stable. A mix of the two? You're fucked. And that is what happend to me and way too many WinME owners. We got fucked.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Microsoft removed the superior method of communicating with hardware that OpenGL had been using since Win9x.
They designed something very similar to what OpenGL did, for DX10, which improved communications efficiency quite a bit. (Takes far less CPU power to talk to the videocards, compared to DX9)
Unfortunately, there's only one of these channels in the kernel now, so OpenGL has to sit on top of it. (Reducing OpenGL's efficiency, since it doesn't need all the overhead that DX10 does)