I must apologize... 10084
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snips
says...
snips If they wanted "Windows" - and buttuming that most folks like to keep reasonably current - why were XP boxed set sales so miserably bad? Now, sales of XP shipped...
I suspect you meant ActiveX. An amusing little page on the subject starts off "ActiveX or how to put nuclear plants in web pages".
Well, if you just working on Windows machines randomly then that still would likely be true. :) Windows machines, due to malware and registry rot if nothing else, do tend to break down a lot more...
Basically, ActiveX allows a web monkey to write a binary executable (very much the same as compiling and linking a typical program) such that it can be automagically retrieved from the website and run on the local machine. Unlike some web-based enhancements which live inside "sandboxes" where they're kept reasonably secure, ActiveX components can merrily do anything any other program on your system can do - and it runs with the same privileges (i.e. full administrative rights, typically) that the user runs with.
little test of ActiveX riskiness. I loaded it and got "Unknown" across the board... until I realized I was running FireFox. Loaded up IE and *pow*, I have a mess of "Not Found" plus a "Medium" and an "Extreme" - apparently my setup of IE is less than totally secure. Big surprise.
Basically, ActiveX appeals to anyone who thinks it is a good idea to randomly click links to anywhere, download everything they see, and run it all - the sort of person who *still* opens e-mail attachments without bothering to chech what they are, first.