Mozilla developers have blocked a Firefox plugin by Microsoft, saying that it poses a security risk, PC World reported.
According to the technology website, Microsoft shipped the Firefox add-on as part of a .Net software update last February. But some Firefox users were unhappy about it. They said the software was sneaked onto their system without their knowledge or approval and that it was difficult to remove.
Last Tuesday, Microsoft warned that Firefox users who have not applied a recent Internet Explorer patch were vulnerable to an attack due to a bug in the Microsoft .Net Framework Assistant add-on, said PC World. To protect users who may not have installed Microsoft’s patch, Mozilla is automatically blocking two add-ons: the Microsoft .Net Framework Assistant and a related plugin called the Windows Presentation Foundation.
The open-source browser started blocking the software late last Friday night, PC World reported. “We contacted Microsoft to indicate that we were looking to disable the extension and plugin for all users via our blocklisting mechanism,” Mozilla vice-president of engineering Mike Shaver was quoted by PC World as saying. “Microsoft agreed with the plan, and we put the blocklist entry live immediately.”
One Comment
Yeah, I’m glad MSFT and Mozilla are working together on this. However, it would be nice if Firefox stated why they disabled the plugins. They were very terse about it. It certainly did not help with the debugging of an interesting problem of Blinking Close Button on Firefox Windows. See more on the UNsolved problem of Blinking Close Button in Firefox in Vista