Firefox users flip out over sneak MS add-on
Silent, but deadly annoying
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Firefox fans are up in arms after a recent Microsoft software update silently installed a Firefox extension that is difficult to remove.
Users agreeing to install a service pack for the .NET Framework (NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1) through Windows update were also pushed a Firefox add-on that is potentially difficult to remove once applied. This add-on - Microsoft .NET Framework Assistant - enables .NET apps to be installed with one click.
Annoyances.org, a Windows gripes site, reports that the update slaps IE-style behaviour on Firefox users, specifically the "ability for Web sites to easily and quietly install software on your PC".
Many Mozilla users might take umbrage to that in principle, even though there's no evidence of attacks in practice; but simply uninstalling early versions of the unwanted extra via Firefox's handy Add-ons interface is not possible because the uninstall button is disabled. This is because the update installs itself for all users of a machine, while the Firefox GUI only manages add-ons for a single profile at a time.
Users have to open up the bonnet of their PC and change settings in RegEdit to remove the potentially unwanted add-on.
Microsoft updated the extension so that it worked on a per-user basis through an update to the Microsoft .NET Framework Assistant issued last month. This software tweak makes the add-on easier to remove.
The original update came out in February, but the behaviour passed the media by before it was picked up in stories by the Washington Post (here), Slashdot and elsewhere over the weekend.
That such tomfoolery could have lain largely unnoticed for so long raises question about whether other Microsoft updates of the past might also have fiddled around with Firefox settings. ®
COMMENTS
omg: windows installing a random piece of software
Wonders will never cease....
Seriously the sooner people realise they should 'grow up' and stop using a kids o.s that is only good for games the better.
HAHAHAHA
Oooooooooooooo the EVIL microsoft managers
Used to go cruising online SEX sites - and in the days of the dimwits promoting themselves with 200 pop-up scripts via the Internet Explorer fabulous fuckup of a browser..... 200 pop ups = MUCH annoyance and shutting down of browser to stop said popping up.
Moved to Opera (browser) and a couple of others, and they had popup blocking about 5 or 6 years before the dimwits in Microsoft ever got around to copying more of other peoples ideas...
And the Dimwits in Microsoft - blocked firefox users from getting MS perpetual updating and etc., from the MS sites..... I nailed them with questions like, "If your Internet Explorerer is so good, they why are you blocking Firefox users?".... a question they refused to answer.
Now that stacks of people are so sick of MS and their bullshit software - and fled to Firefox; The Scum-Dums in MS start to copy or steal all the innovations done by other people - who made Firefox...,
Now MS are hacking other peoples systems and browsers...... Big Punch in the FACE for Steve Ball-Me-Er
Excellent a Blibble
In a fit of disgust I went to the place you delete shit and ploffed [Specifically anything .NET and arbitrarily Microsoft] it off. Not that I should be bothered that...... later on in the excercise it was saying some of me software would not work if I did it.
HAH!!!!!! KILL KILL KILL
Still..... I did notice that [grumble] when I tried to uninstall one bit of cruft I was told that I did not have the 'Administrative Privilidges' to do so. YahFuckingBut I, don't know who the fuck you think you are but am Admin/Root God and shit coz you let me be.
Strange to say that having arbitrarily got rid of the cruft putre [sic] boots real quick and still works.
I suppose I'll just install Firefox again and gain a lack of .NET compatibilty until my shit get upgraded.
Whoopy Fucking Dooo!!!!
Microsoft is downloading updates to take care of me.... or sniffing about elsewhere after my rape to see what I got rid of.
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