Microsoft Update Slips In a Firefox Extension 803
An anonymous reader writes "While doing a weekly scrub of my Windows systems, which includes checking for driver updates and running virus scans, I found Firefox notifying me of a new add-on. It's labelled 'Microsoft .NET Framework Assistant,' and it 'Adds ClickOnce support and the ability to report installed .NET versions to the web server.' The add-on could not be uninstalled in the usual way. A little Net searching turned up a number of sites offering advice on getting rid of the unrequested add-on." The unasked-for extension has been hitchhiking along with updates to Visual Studio, and perhaps other products that depend on .NET, since August. It appears to have gone wider recently, coming in with updates to XP SP3.
Re:malware.... (Score:5, Funny)
Remember Sony?
Yes. Trying not to.
The Microsoft icon. (Score:1, Funny)
Intelligence gathering (Score:5, Funny)
sony (Score:5, Funny)
Never forget.
Forgetting is key to getting caught again. You can only catch a cat in the same trap once.
Re:malware.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:First (Score:5, Funny)
!First. Fail!
...not first, fail not? ugh, this is why I prefer using the bitwise oprtator (~) instead, although in /. lore this is instead in jokes used to mean "home", per the bash usage instead of the one's complement.
Or, I just need to get out more. After asking why all the guys were buying wings and beer on the same day in throngs at the grocery store, I found out the last super bowl was indeed not 32.
Re:Equal Opportunity Offender... (Score:5, Funny)
Don't worry. IE has so many holes they're no longer news-worthy.
Wait. You mean IE has non-hole parts?
Re:Amazing (Score:5, Funny)
Classic move. People noticed. Two steps forward 10 steps back, eh? [emphasis added]
I can't tell if that's binary or decimal or what.
Re:First (Score:3, Funny)
mumble... bitwise oprtator (~) mumble...
Lovely spelling as well, after all its not like every app using GNOME has spell-check now. And on such a detailed subject with no right being brought up in the same post as football, too! Why don't I either start writing my posts in binary or just tap some snipped ethernet wires together to make the binary datagrams/packets myself? Man I really need to get out more...
Re:Dude (Score:1, Funny)
I, too, am a fan of British Columbia.
Re:Normal for Microsoft (Score:3, Funny)
So who are you, Umberto fuckin' Eco?
Re:Why get upset? Firefox users avoid proprietary (Score:3, Funny)
Echo'ed.
If someone in a suit on the street forced you to wear a band-aid on your shoulder, you'd ask them what was up with them. If someone wanted on the street was "vaccinating" everyone walking by, you'd turn and run the other way.
Re:Scumware, eh? (Score:5, Funny)
You have a problem with autogenerated bull-honky? This site [simple-pc-help.com] may have the answer!
Re:malware.... (Score:5, Funny)
Is there any difference between Microsoft doing that to Firefox, and Microsoft doing that popup blocker with Internet Explorer when someone does the SP2 update? Or how they force a firewall on you?
You see, Microsoft is akin to a proctologist. Sticking things where they don't belong.
Re:malware.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:malware.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:malware.... (Score:5, Funny)
they don't want you to accidentally buy a Zune, or Windows 7. ClickOnce is a deployment techno... oh, hang on.. suddenly I'm not sure I got the first bit right.
Re:malware.... (Score:5, Funny)
How about this one: Ok Microsoft, you are making automatic changes to software written by other companies without permission or request of the user. I don't care if you say it's just an extension, you didn't ask me! My trust just went right down the toilet.
Don't worry, just flush. You'll have some more trust in about 20-30 hours.
(I'm only half-joking)
Re:malware.... (Score:3, Funny)
They violated my open FireFox with their dirty corporate extension.
Re:Allowed scope of updates (Score:3, Funny)
Whatâ(TM)s next, an OpenOffice extension to make sure Microsoft never has an $ where their s is?
Hah, MS are never gonna stop me from saying MS - there's no way they can do that. MS MS MS - see?
Re:malware.... (Score:5, Funny)
The only appropriate response would be for Mozilla to automatically refuse it from Firefox with the next Firefox update.
I have a better idea, let Firefox add an "extension" to Microsoft Office that improves its usability by downloading and starting OpenOffice when the user starts MS Office.
Mozilla should include a Linux "OS extension" (Score:4, Funny)
Re:malware.... (Score:3, Funny)
If you like Madonna then feel free to read this joke with Michael Jackson in it instead.
Re:Normal for Microsoft (Score:4, Funny)
I sure am, but then again I'm not claiming I'm smarter than you are. I actually didn't so much prove anything as right out said that I didn't understand what was being said. I don't really feel any shame in that.
I'm still confused. You say that "You can't see the world as it is. It is not possible". If that is true, then you're statement is self-contradictory because you are saying that you are seeing the world as it is, which is that seeing the world as it is is not possible. And thus relativism withers on the vine of postmodernism.
Perhaps you are having issues with facing reality? I know it's tough, but when you mature a little in a few years time it should be possible to start coping.
Re:Normal for Microsoft (Score:5, Funny)
you came here for software? I'm sorry, this is Abuse!
Re:malware.... (Score:4, Funny)
If they wanted to do that, they wouldn't be so stupid as to make it an extension that's clearly visible in the Firefox preferences.
After some recent events [arstechnica.com], I'm starting to suspect that Microsoft may indeed be stupid.
Re:sony (Score:3, Funny)
Why he wouldn't just come inside to eat the exact same food was beyond me.
Because, although you could only see it as two examples of the same food, your cat could appreciate the underlying symbolic differences.
Strange, I don't see it... (Score:3, Funny)
Oh, wait...
Re:sony (Score:5, Funny)
Isn't installing BHOs that are not asked for and cannot be uninstalled without hacking pretty much the definition of malware?
Give the guy a chance, he's only been in for two weeks...
Rich
Re:sony (Score:4, Funny)
Ah I see he was performing a commentary on how we are all really prisoners to our appetites.
Or he was a lazy fatass. I'm going with the second.
Re:malware.... (Score:4, Funny)
This is a good point.
Since copyright infringement is now routinely elevated to the violent robbery of "piracy", then it makes sense that we start calling the insertion of unwanted extensions into our applications "rape".
The charge is "You have inserted your extension into my application without my consent". Yeah, that's rape.