Mozilla Unveils Firefox Plug-in Checker

[Peaches]

Mozilla unveils Firefox Plug-in checker

Links to plug-ins from Apple and Microsoft offered

by Gregg Keizer

Mozilla has unveiled a web page that checks for outdated plug-ins used by Firefox.

Mozilla is testing the page, which pings the company servers, then returns a list of plug-ins, noting those that are up-to-date and ones that should be updated.

Links to the plug-in download pages are also available so that users can obtain the most current versions of software from the likes of Adobe, Microsoft , Sun and Apple.

A month ago, Mozilla debuted its plug-in checking with updates to Firefox 3.5.3 and Firefox 3.0.14, which automatically detected outdated versions of Adobe's Flash Player and prompted users to upgrade to the newest - and theoretically the most secure - edition of the browser plug-in.

At the time, Mozilla said it would follow that initial move with others, including the publishing of a page that Firefox users could visit to check the status of other vendors' plug-ins.

Two weeks after introducing the plug-in check, Mozilla said it had convinced 10 million Firefox users to go to Adobe's site and grab the latest version of Flash.

According to Blair McBride, the Mozilla developer who announced the test plug-in check page on his blog today, Mozilla will add a built-in plug-in checking feature to Firefox 3.6, which is slated for release before the end of the year.

"Firefox 3.6 will have this integrated to make sure users know when they have an outdated plug-in, without having to manually visit the Plugin Check page," said McBride. "Whenever you load a page that uses a plug-in that is out of date, you'll get [a] warning."

The warning will read: "Some plugins used by this page are out of date". A button will be available to update the plug-in.

Firefox 3.6 will also sport changes to the browser's add-on too. "The Plugins tab of the Extension Manager (Tools/Add-ons) will indicate which of your plugins are out of date," promised McBride.

Read more at PC Advisor - http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/securityadvisor...=3203469&sa

[Besttechie]

Smart move by Mozilla. They can't risk tarnishing their "secure" reputation. Most of the time though (even true with Windows) if you keep up to date with the latest updates for software you can stay secure. Out of date software is a big security risk and unfortunately most people do not realize that. I knew some people who were still on Firefox 2 (and how many people still use IE6!) until recently and I'm sure there are many others.

B