Are Microsoft and Firefox at War?
I hadn’t used Firefox in a day or two. When I fired it up this morning, the warning below from Firefox popped up telling me that it was blocking two of Microsoft’s addons.
“Firefox has determined that the following add-ons are known to cause stability or security problems.
Microsoft .NET Framework Assistant – Blocked
Windows Presentation Foundation – Blocked”
I knew that in May, many Firefox users were really angry that Microsoft Updates were installing addons to Firefox without any permission. I didn’t know that Mozilla, the parent company of Firefox had decided to do something about it.
Here’s a quote from the Mozilla Security Blog on October 16th.
“Because of the difficulties some users have had entirely removing the add-on, and because of the severity of the risk it represents if not disabled … we put the blocklist entry live immediately”
It seems that Firefox is not only blocking the .NET Framework Assistant, they are also blocking a new addon named Windows Presentation Foundation. My first question was, “Are Microsoft and Firefox at War?”.
To answer my own question, I’d have to say YES and NO. If competition can be considered a war, then YES, the Mozilla Foundation has been at war with Microsoft since it was conceived. However, at least the first addon being blocked was not a surprise to Microsoft and Mozilla actually consulted with them before adding the block. Therefore, the answer is also NO. At least they do talk to each other and even agree on some security issues.
Now for the second question. What can I do if I really like those addons and I want them back? The answer now is NOTHING. That’s okay with me. I didn’t want them to start with.
Who could possibly want stuff added to their PC without full disclosure? It doesn’t matter if we want it or not. Microsoft does this all the time.
Note: The Firefox Eating IE Icon above was created by “archangel-daemon”
Do you hate Microsoft? Do you love Firefox? Do you have any ideas you’d like to share? Be sure to add a comment below or email me. I’d love to hear from you.
Prashant
October 19th, 2009 at 9:17 am #
For every website I build, I always end up putting ie.css and reset.css so that d*** IE can show it properly! I think its high time Microsoft moves ahead. Its a transparent world now. No they don’t have to publish their code but atleast do some good! Dont be evil!
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clif.notes
October 19th, 2009 at 12:44 pm #
Thanks Prashant. I think most webmasters would agree with you. Not many of them would shed a single tear if Internet Explorer suddenly disappeared from every PC.
I don’t hate Microsoft, I just hate some of the things they do. One of the things I hate is their cowboy mentality on browser standards. They believe they can win by forcing everyone to use their standards (or lack of them).
Unfortunately, IE won’t disappear anytime soon …
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