Windows Advantage Validation Process On Firefox 283
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.'"
If they really wanted to improve our experience... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:If they really wanted to improve our experience (Score:3, Insightful)
It's called bargaining. "Oh, they support firefox, so they must not be THAT bad".
It's about time... (Score:2, Insightful)
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/ [religiousfreaks.com]Re:Brrrrrrrrr, cold here (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Windows Updates? (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:3 nasty words.. + one (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Windows Updates? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Brrrrrrrrr, cold here (Score:3, Insightful)
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...
Live Services (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Steps one and two in place. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:If they really wanted to improve our experience (Score:3, Insightful)
"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.Re:I'm not going to care... (Score:1, Insightful)
They did http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=330909 [microsoft.com] 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.
Get off your Anti-MS High horses! (Score:5, Insightful)
So... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Holy crap (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:But... (Score:3, Insightful)
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?)
Outlook Web Access? (Score:3, Insightful)
The user experience running Word on Linux... (Score:4, Insightful)
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
Re:Good thing for the customer (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I'm not going to care... (Score:3, Insightful)
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 [fs-driver.org] 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.
Re:I'm not going to care... (Score:3, Insightful)
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 [sourceforge.net]
If someone can root your box, they can install this driver, so your Linux stuff is not safe from kiddies, never was.
Re:Coming next... (Score:2, Insightful)
Humm
Re:Other Options beside windows update (Score:1, Insightful)
(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.