Enable ActiveX in Firefox

Hello.

Just to revisit the question of ActiveX.
Well, yes, indeed, the ActiveX technology is dangerous, but like a chainsaw, or even a simple kitchen knife in the hands of a disturbed kid:
In other words, if used carelessly, it poses considerable risks.

Now, with proper settings, by default refusing any unsolicited plugin installations, you can avoid the pestilence of the PC. ActiveX remains particularly important in today's web, and forgoing it is certainly troublesome for normal browsing on a number of professional sites.

I do not know this Firefox plugin that manages ActiveX, but I hope it indeed allows for secure settings regarding the acceptance of installation and execution of ActiveX or not. Because otherwise, it’s better to ultimately use IE, which does have this type of configuration.

(Moreover, all of MS technology relies on these ActiveX components today... (even .Net), so it is curious to see that Peer-to-Peer users who download anything and everything, install things that are not necessarily clean, and advocate the use of Firefox for security reasons. It’s better not to look at what the software in question has installed.

My opinion remains that security is everyone’s responsibility and a daily matter, and for that, the best approach is not to deprive oneself of the normal use of software (including ActiveX in web browsing), but to use them correctly:
Do not use a system for office/home use (including games, photos, videos) with an administrator account (even Windows 2000, XP and Vista allow you to create accounts with reduced rights that are sufficient for this use, and not only UNIX (BSD, etc...) or LINUX).
Do not install stuff downloaded from Peer-to-Peer networks (more or less legal) which generally are rife with worms.
These 2 guidelines will then help to keep a system clean, and if a worm nevertheless exploits a flaw in software (messaging, web browser, etc...), the limited rights of the account will quickly block the infection that will ultimately be cleaned up later by antivirus software. (This would have been possible because the worm would not have been able to infect the system at its deepest levels).

@zelActiveX remains particularly important in today's web

ActiveX only works in Internet Explorer, and only on Windows.

In other words, it is absolutely not in the spirit of the web (open standards, platform independence...), in short, it is contrary to everything that makes the internet work.
(TCP/IP works regardless of your system, the same goes for HTTP, HTML, PNG... without these platform-independent standards, there would be no internet as we know it today).

So not only does ActiveX pose various security issues (often misused, it's true), but on top of that, it is not interesting since it excludes a part of internet users (those who do not use IE, those who are on MacOS X, Linux...)

Indeed, ActiveX serves specific purposes (for example, online antivirus), but it's better to avoid it as much as possible.

all MS technology relies on these ActiveX components today... (even .Net)

In fact, no.
With .Net, Microsoft's goal is to replace COM APIs with the new .Net API (all the functions are different and have been reprogrammed).
ActiveX/COM is still very much present at the heart of Windows (because a massive number of software depend on it), but it's not for nothing that Microsoft wants all developers to use the new .Net API.

it is therefore strange to see users of Peer2Peer who download anything and everything, install things that are not necessarily clean, and advocate the use of Firefox for security reasons.

They are not necessarily the same people.

Do not use a system for office/home use (including games, photos, videos) with an administrator account

Absolutely agree.
The problem is that very few Windows software developers are aware of this, and many applications simply do not work without admin rights.
It is evolving, but it is far from light.

@sebsauvageHello,

It seems that we can enable ActiveX on demand in Firefox.
Can you tell me if this is true, if it's dangerous, and possibly how to do it?
Thanks in advance and congratulations again on your site which I recommend to everyone.

@torpedolosTo use ActiveX in Firefox, you need to install a specific extension (see http://adons.mozilla.com)

Yes, it's dangerous.

Question:

I had the same problem as lazzar when I tried to download a driver from touslesdrivers.com.
The link for the analysis wouldn't open.

Then I saw that MSN was notifying me of a problem with ActiveX at launch. (without any incident on the software's functionality though)

Finally, the download links from Steam aren't working.
The "Install the demo" or "Install the game" links from the "store" window/tab to start the download.
This may be related to ActiveX, I don't know.

I searched for a solution on addons.mozilla.org/ because I surf on Firefox, but I don't know if downloading one of these add-ons (I was thinking of MediaWrap) will solve anything.

The complete link: https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/search?q=activex&cat=all

There you go, your help is welcome.

Firefox apparently is not compatible with all sites or it does not have all the necessary plugins.

Opera, on the other hand, allows you to identify as IE5.

Everyone is beautiful but not necessarily kind.

See you later!

Connection timeout when contacting ..."
I am missing a plugin?

No no, no relation.
It's just that the site is not responding.