Sneaky Microsoft plug-in puts Firefox users at risk, page 3

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reply posted on 17-10-2009 @ 11:01 PM by hoghead cheese

Originally posted by LadySkadi
Interesting timing. Not 5 minutes ago Firefox alerted me to this, but said it had been blocked. Recommended a re-start to be safe.

*MS Framework assistant .net 1.1
*Windows Presentation foundation

S&F

[edit on 17-10-2009 by LadySkadi]

Same here, I get this warning about the .NET plugin and another and says they have blocked it but should restart firefox. The problem with microsoft is their propensity to make backdoors in all their stuff so they can snoop and other "places" can snoop also. This causes a problem because if you leave the door open for you to go in and out, don't be surprised that other people can find those openings and use them to their benefit.

reply posted on 17-10-2009 @ 11:05 PM by Scooby Doo

Originally posted by autowrench
I use Fedora myself. Kill the Microsoft Billionaire Beast...download Linux for free.

I agree that Linux is a great and free alternative to Microsoft and Apple OS's. However, I don't think it is well suited for "typical" family use. Linux is a very complex OS, and to repair faults can be difficult.

I myself use Windows 7 Which I am happy with so far and use a Macbook Pro for a laptop. Currently the only issue I have had with Windows 7 is it's use of your memory resources. I have 4GB of DDR2 RAM and it still lags quite a bit.

reply posted on 17-10-2009 @ 11:06 PM by searching4truth

reply to post by hoghead cheese

I posted earlier, and I just received the same error message as you. It rebooted firefox, but ats was reopened right away (not my normal home page). If firefox is blocking it, what is the point? Could there be something on the system anyway?

reply posted on 17-10-2009 @ 11:08 PM by LadySkadi

reply to post by hoghead cheese

So how does one shut the door? Is it possible? My laptop came Vista installed and I may have access to upgrade to Win. 7 (free through university) but honestly, I don't really know much about this... or how to counteract it...

reply posted on 17-10-2009 @ 11:13 PM by searching4truth

Originally posted by autowrench
reply to post by searching4truth

Just for your information...I had a long conversation about a year ago with a man who worked for Norton. Now granted, I didn't ask him to prove it, but here is what he said. When you install Norton Anti Virus, you are installing a virus into your Windows computer. The virus is on a timer, and when the time is up, the virus is released. Then Norton will pop up and tell you you need to "upgrade" to get rid of this virus. How many of you Norton users have seen this? All you need to is input your credit card number.....

Having had many problems with Windows, I made the switch to Linux a long time ago, and will never go back. Linux is safer, faster, comes with many games, no "Blue Screen of Death," no virus ever, and secure as can be. I use Fedora myself. Kill the Microsoft Billionaire Beast...download Linux for free.

Not surprising, after my, um, discussion with their rep, I have never used their programs (and it is horrible to uninstall, when I needed a new computer I didn't put it on, nor did it come with it). I'll have to look into Linux, I've heard great things about it, but I'm not particular super computer savy. Thanks

reply posted on 17-10-2009 @ 11:21 PM by pauldamo

reply to post by Blackmarketeer

i have been using an oem activated win 7 rtm for months,has the ability to uninstall i explorer,i receive hot fixes and security updates with no trouble.i love win 7,have had no trouble with drivers from the beginning, even my 5.1 sound card works, which didn't with vista.sorry starting to sound like a plug for win 7,just wanted to point out that you no longer have to have i explorer for updates,and to give vista the flick.

reply posted on 17-10-2009 @ 11:32 PM by die_another_day

firefox disabled them for me.

reply posted on 17-10-2009 @ 11:35 PM by tracehd1

reply to post by searching4truth

Norton is one of the worst software programs out there!! If you uninstall Norton get advice on how to do it. It's not as simple as just uninstalling... you have to actually get a program to make sure that ALL of Norton is off your computer. The only way I know to describe it is that Norton act's like spider legs..it literally infects your whole system!!! Again...google how to get all of norton out of your system. McAfee is another program that is tuff to get off your system!! I wouldn't trust any of them!!

reply posted on 17-10-2009 @ 11:43 PM by Scooby Doo

reply to post by tracehd1

I didn't find norton too bad, however, scans seemed to take eternity and I agree, it is like trying to remove a tattoo if you wish to uninstall.

reply posted on 17-10-2009 @ 11:45 PM by C0bzz

How was it sneaky and secret? It was in Windows Update. You agreed to download, and install it. Also, why do people complain about Microsoft and then use their software as an OS? As I've stated before, use Linux or go get a Mac if you hate it so much.

DISABLE automatic updates, then STOP the Security Center service. Update your system by going to the windows update website, and choose which to download and update.

or use OPERA 10.

BTW, I'm running an XP rig with the default firewall, and no anti-virus. I use the Windowsupdate.com website to update my computer, and manually choose which updates to install. I have never had any issues with this; no crashes; no bloat; no nothing. I have never gotten a BSOD that was software related on this computer, or my previous computer which I received back in early 2005. I have installed security suites in the past, but they resulted in bloat, and the only thing they picked up was cookies - the kind that ATS uses. And if I wanted to delete cookies I would go Tools---->preferences---->delete. I don't need a $50 program to do it for me.

In fact, the last time I got a virus was when I was on shady websites and for some reason decided to click "install active-x control" back in 2004 - and honestly it doens't take a rocket scientist to not download and install absolute crap. The main sources of bloat come from Adobe programs, iTunes, Quicktime, (honesty Apple seems to be the worst), Steam, and also anti-virus programs . It seems to me that people are just using Microsoft as a whipping boy for their own computer illiteracy. Maybe your computer didn't crash because of an automatic update, maybe it crashed because you downloaded and installed crap onto it? Or maybe connected to an insecure network without being protected?

As far as Linux goes (and I am a Fedora user), it is generally extremely difficult to use. See, to get the internet working on Fedora, for some reason I had to input DNS addresses manually, to install Nvidia drivers I have download all these libraries, then to go into terminal and type a bunch of commands, the sound constantly cuts out, and it took hours to figure out how to get sound in flash to work. Apparently I need to download some pre-beta 64 bit verson of flash for linux, then manually install in some way to get around the trusted computing. On Windows? Double click on the .exe, click next a few times, reboot, and you're done. As far as running Windows applications in Linux - more often than not they don't even work properly.

Mac? Crap hardware?

[edit on 18/10/2009 by C0bzz]

reply posted on 17-10-2009 @ 11:56 PM by searching4truth

reply to post by tracehd1

Yes, it was a nightmare and eventhough it should have been removed, I did still see some residue. But I ended up needing a new system anyway so I was aware of the issue and avoided it like the plague.

I do wonder though now, where I went to college all Microsoft programs were either free or $5 as was norton, so the majority of students bought their products at the bookstore as opposed to hundreds of dollars in the stores. I know they don't offer that to broke college students out of the kindness of their hearts, so what is the motive, what is their benefit?

reply posted on 18-10-2009 @ 12:59 AM by RedAmnesia

I think that we all agree it's time for Mozilla, Google or other big companies to launch their own operating system to compete with the monopoly of Microsoft.
Google chrome is doing great and so fast and light on all my PCs, it's amazing for slow connections too.
Microsoft is playing unfair games and no one can stop them till now.

reply posted on 18-10-2009 @ 01:31 AM by PenandSword

Originally posted by die_another_day
firefox disabled them for me.

Same here. Microsoft is unscrupulous. One day they'll get theirs.

reply posted on 18-10-2009 @ 02:00 AM by CHA0S

Thanks for this info...I was really suspicious from the moment I noticed something from Microsoft in my Firefox add-ons...it seems I had a good reason to be suspicious...can those fools do anything right? Well...I do like Windows 7 though...it made up for their pitiful thing they call an operating system...Vista...*cringes*...

reply posted on 18-10-2009 @ 02:06 AM by hoghead cheese

Originally posted by Scooby Doo
reply to post by tracehd1

I didn't find norton too bad, however, scans seemed to take eternity and I agree, it is like trying to remove a tattoo if you wish to uninstall.

I use Kaspersky anti-virus and spam program for my security. I find out that it isn't a resource hog. I use to have Norton anti-virus when it had the map function to backtrack an attack and the year or two after they dropped it. When I first got it it came installed in my VAIO desktop back when I bought it almost 6 years ago. But over the years and versions, it became such a hog that I got rid of it and decided on Kaspersky (another reason my be that my computer being as old as it is even with the increase in RAM, it's hardware was getting out of date). Also I meant to ask you, how is windows 7. I have been waiting until next weekend to order my computer with it pre-installed this weekend. I didn't want to get the new computer with visteon and then move all of my software to it and then upgrade to windows 7 and have to deal with conflicts again.

reply posted on 18-10-2009 @ 02:12 AM by hoghead cheese

Originally posted by LadySkadi
reply to post by hoghead cheese

So how does one shut the door? Is it possible? My laptop came Vista installed and I may have access to upgrade to Win. 7 (free through university) but honestly, I don't really know much about this... or how to counteract it...

You would have to google, but I do believe you can find software (free or pay) that will trace and monitor any communication that comes from your computer, and then you can decide which one to let go. Many of the anti-virus and firewall programs can do it, but they normally let windows as a whole communicate, you can't split the windows lets say explorer apart and say yea let this communication through but not that one from the same program. I hope that helps, The anti-virus and firewalls block in bulk and the free/pay shareware can divide it down to it's basic and maybe let you block. Of course you would really have to know what your doing because some communications may be so entwined in order to stop you from doing just that, unless you know what your doing.

reply posted on 18-10-2009 @ 02:18 AM by nenothtu

Originally posted by pauldamo
www.annoyances.org...yeah i deleted this plug-in months ago,its better top do it properly, not just disable it.this is a link to the instructions.

[edit on 17-10-2009 by pauldamo]

Excellent walkthrough. Firefox gave me the popup too this evening, and required a restart. I was curious about it, but when I saw this thread, I got REAL curious about it.

I went through the steps outlined, it's all good now. The registry key was still there, so I zapped it, and the folder containing the addon was still there, so I zapped THAT too, by secure wipe, but Firefox had already banished it from the Kingdom of Mozilla, so I didn't have to tinker with the Firefox config settings. I looked, but it wasn't there.

It looks like Mozilla took care of this little problem for us. Another good reason I use their stuff. Firefox will banish it, and you only have to go through the extra steps if you're as paranoid as I.

reply posted on 18-10-2009 @ 02:24 AM by DrMattMaddix

Originally posted by Klavier

Originally posted by Blackmarketeer
It kills me that the corporate world is so beholden to MS's garbage, that's about the only thing keeping IE alive, as I'm sure the majority of people would gladly switch to a far better and safer browser like FF.

Safer? home.comcast.net...
Check that out and think again.

I would warn anyone (and everyone) away from your link...

Why? Because it's a Comcast personal webpage. He obviously intermixes opinion with assumed facts. (You have to take his facts at face value since most people aren't tech savvy.)

The fact that Andrew K has his Comcast personal page set to /~SupportCD and doesn't clearly represent his view as a personal opinion should be good enough to raise some red flags.

comcast.net/~SupportCD anyone that feels the need to spout heavy handed reviews and opinions from behind that... likely has a lot to hide.

And could quite possibly be involved in more misleading and even fraudulent endeavors. I'm just sayin' ... Healthy skepticism for self proclaimed SupportCD!!

Since I have a very high distaste/dislike for self proclaimed computer deities, it's in my interest to alert the casual internet users.

Although, his scathing bitterness shows through fairly brightly. Facts are neither bitter nor scathing.

On a side note I'm looking into whether I really need MS Silverlight & MS DRM Plugins that I've found installed on my FireFox.

They are disabled until I find more info...

Edit : Typos come out at night...

Edit : and bad grammar come out at night...

[edit on 10·18·09 by DrMattMaddix]

[edit on 10·18·09 by DrMattMaddix]

reply posted on 18-10-2009 @ 02:35 AM by Mr Headshot

Opera FTW

I've always said, the more people use a browser the more of this stuff you'll find.

reply posted on 18-10-2009 @ 03:04 AM by chiron613

I would think this is illegal. It's one thing for Microsoft to install Windows components people might not want. They have Windows, so MS might have some right (or at least an excuse) for monkeying around with it. But to affect Firefox itself, without permission? That is, or should be, against the law.

This is one reason I avoid using Windows or any Microsoft products. Not just poor quality software, but a fascist mentality about whose computer it is. Microsoft thinks computers are for them to command.

They just keep getting more arrogant. Get off Microsoft products. They're bad news.