RSSMicrosoft to Remove Eolas Barrier in IE
By Ed Oswald | Published November 8, 2007, 4:13 PM
Microsoft has begun advising customers on planned changes to IE now that it has licensed technology from Eolas, however it may have accidentally let slip a release window for Vista SP1 and XP SP3 to boot.
UPDATED The Redmond company said Thursday that it will release an update in April 2008 as part of its regular cumulative update for Internet Explorer that month. Microsoft will make the functionality available via a preview release in December.
"We are simply reverting to the old behavior," senior product manager Pete LePage said. "Once Internet Explorer is updated, all pages that currently require 'click to activate' will no longer require the control to be activated. They'll just work."
In order to appease Eolas, Microsoft made a change to Internet Explorer in March 2006 that prevented ActiveX controls from loading automatically. The functionality changed affected many popular programs that could be embedded into web pages.
However, in August, the two sides made up which likely resulted in a large sum of cash being paid to Eolas, and now appears to have also included some type of licensing arrangement.
This arrangement would uncripple ActiveX as a way to load content within web pages, and is surely good news for developers.
As well as letting users know of the change, LePage also may have let slip the release date of both service packs for Vista and XP. While the service pack for Vista had been expected for the first quarter of 2008, XP Service Pack 3 had been thought to be much further away.
LePage said that these both will be made part of the next pre-release versions of both patches, leading some to believe that the final releases of both could be much closer than previously thought.
However, in an e-mail to BetaNews following the initial publication of this story, LePage denied any connection to the timing of either service pack.
I'm so glad I made the switch to FireFox like a year ago...
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ActiveX is a nightmare. And now it's gonna load without asking. That's just dumb.
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It's still going to kick in a window prompt if a website wants to install an active x control, you noob.
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good news for active x is rarely good news for the web
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what is internet explorer?
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Delivery system for malware. They're now making it easier to deliver the goods.
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To PhoenixPath and deda, this is not a new thing for Microsoft / I.E.
I.E will be reverting to the old behaviour.
Automatic ActiveX activation was always the default until the Eolas dispute.
It isn't particularly good for security, but it's not a new concept that hasn't already been exploited in the past.
Paul, programmers can very easily work around the "Click to activate" problem. If they haven't, it's because they are lazy.
Workarounds have been around since at least April 2006, possibly earlier.
See http://blog.metawrap.com...ngPatentInPictures.aspx or http://www.google.com.au...mp;btnG=Search&meta=
or go searching on microsoft.com for their solution.
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"I.E will be reverting to the old behaviour.
Automatic ActiveX activation was always the default until the Eolas dispute.
It isn't particularly good for security.."
Pretty much my point.
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unhindered ActiveX that no longer requires user intervention?
Yeah, that's going to end well...
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dont worry. it's completely safe thanks to all the new security features in VEESTAH.
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> "This arrangement would uncripple ActiveX as a way to load content within web pages, and is surely good news for developers."
Great news to me as well. I've always felt that X was rather usefull and like Paul I am also annoyed with the 'click to activate'.
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I'm glad of this news.
Click-to-activate has been annoying.
It's also good to 'know' that SP3 for XP is fairly close.
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I'm not English native!
The doors will be wide open to the hackers, with red carpet along.
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