Tuesday, 6 October 2009

Firefox: a page to bring the plug-ins obsolete


Some have noticed the latest version of Firefox (3.5.3) could warn users that their Flash player was "outdated." A convenient way to sign because the updates come more often to plug security holes. Mozilla has decided to extend this principle to all other plug-ins, or at least to most. As can be seen in the capture above, the idea is to list the installed plug-ins and provide an associated state. Mozilla has set up a database referencing the latest available and notifies you if you simply need to upgrade. Where everything goes well, the lights are green and Mozilla congratulates you a nice "You are safe" ( "You're safe," at least as much as possible). Otherwise, the button says "Update Now" ( "Update now") to remedy the situation. For now, it is a simple web page, but this may become a feature in its own browser thereafter. Warning, a security warning will be present on the page because of a certificate that does not work. It will add an exception to use the detection plug-ins.