
Microsoft nixes ActiveX add-on technology in new Edge browser - uladzislau
http://www.computerworld.com/article/2920892/web-browsers/microsoft-nixes-activex-add-on-technology-in-new-edge-browser.html
======
ptx
I was recently reading David Chappell's "Understanding ActiveX and OLE"
(published in 1996) and found this part amusing:

"Once the Windows shell itself lets you browse the Web, the need for a
separate web browser application becomes less apparent. But while web browsers
as such might one day fade into the mists of history, that day hasn't yet
arrived. And even if browsers per se vanish, [COM] components such as the Web
Browser object and the HTML viewer will survive."

~~~
woah
Actually very prescient, except that the MS tech he mentions is not being
used. He basically describes the exact role that the browser plays on mobile
devices today.

~~~
7952
Browsers are definitely starting to offer what operating systems do. It is
interesting to poke around in the chrome://gpu pages and you see just how
aware chrome is of the underlying hardware. It disables features based on
hardware, and drivers rather than rely on the underlying system.

Browsers offer a reliable way to use hardware without any configuration. It is
easy to forget how difficult something like video playback could be (relying
on player software) before sites like Youtube came along.

~~~
WorldWideWayne
I just want a tree view and a data grid that work as well as native ones do.

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tuna-piano
In related news from last month, South Korea is finally moving away from
ActiveX, with the goal of having at least 90 percent of the country's top 100
websites 'ActiveX-free,' by 2017...

[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/02/south_korea_to_depor...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/02/south_korea_to_deport_microsoft_activex/)

For those who need some background: "A law passed in the late 90's to
facilitate ecommerce security requires using an ActiveX control, and therefore
IE, to shop on Korean sites."

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/due-to-
secu...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/due-to-security-law-
south-korea-is-stuck-with-internet-explorer-for-online-
shopping/2013/11/03/ffd2528a-3eff-11e3-b028-de922d7a3f47_story.html)

[http://www.zdnet.com/article/south-koreans-use-internet-
expl...](http://www.zdnet.com/article/south-koreans-use-internet-explorer-its-
the-law/)

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shimonamit
HTML5 is an excellent alternative to ActiveX, particularly in the area of mime
type handling, but it does not facilitate native desktop interaction. There is
still a basic need for certain websites to interact with pre-installed
native/legacy applications using a secure method such as Google Native
Messaging, but Microsoft hasn't committed to anything similar.

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dogma1138
Wow, not even legacy support? Not sure if that's going to fly the amount of
both extremely old and even brand new enterprise crap systems that still use
ActiveX is quite staggering for everything from banking applications to VPN
and such ActiveX is still used quite a bit.

Edit: nvm didn't load half the page, enterprise version will have ActiveX &
BHO support :D

~~~
atonse
Seriously? It's damned if you do, damned if you don't for MS. ActiveX is the
last bastion of archaic plugin APIs that have been replaced with native html5
features (in most cases). It's about time MS took this thing out and shot it.

The awesome thing about Edge is that they can make these decisions and start
fresh without hurting backwards compatibility (because there IS no backwards
in Edge, it's brand new), and they can just say "you want all this legacy
stuff? use IE" \- IE, with its 4 rendering engines, ActiveX, and various zones
and modes to appease IT departments, is not going away.

~~~
dogma1138
Wasn't saying it's a bad thing, but the enterprise market, especially in
finance is bloated with various ActiveX components because it was the flavor
of the week (turned into the falvor of the decade) when companies had to
transform legacy thick client applications to web applications, the sad part
is that by the time everything was in place ActiveX was already legacy :) Heck
I've had to review ActiveX builds are recent as last year which were "brand
new".

I personally loath ActiveX, i hate pretty much any tech that require me to
load a 3rd party app inside my browsers whether it's the pesky JRE which you
can never update because the 1 site you need it for won't support anything
past JRE 7.1, or that ancient ActiveX which you need to open in IE10 in IE7
compatibility mode with virtually every security measure disabled. I'm just
saying this move might hurt quite a bit of people, but MSFT seems to be moving
away from their usual desktop software modus operandai and moving towards
becoming more and more of a services providers/SAAS company.

It doesn't mean that if they decide to take out ActiveX it won't hurt allot of
people, and even MSFT in the short time, luckily they still will have some
sort of backwards compatibility support and i hope it will be available to
normal consumers on demand also. Since sorry but once in a while i need to use
an ActiveX too, whether it's some old WebEx or Citrix installation or some
really outdated SSL VPN and i don't want to keep some Windows XP/7 VM on hand
all the time to do it.

I know it's not what the cool kids do, but sadly for people that tend to work
with big and sometimes anachronistic enterprises it's a reality.

~~~
atonse
> I know it's not what the cool kids do, but sadly for people that tend to
> work with big and sometimes anachronistic enterprises it's a reality.

Right, and nothing will change for those people, because IE will continue to
exist for many years. Knowing MS, they'll probably provide patches for it for
another 5 years. By then, if people haven't moved on, then some IT folks need
to be fired - you've had 15 years to think about upgrading out of ActiveX,
really no excuses left.

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cies
Now lets prevent this dark in history from repeating itself. Let keep the web
free of proprietary "single-browser" tech.

~~~
bad_user
PNaCL? Dart VM?

~~~
cies
Is PNaCl proprietary? Is it something that other browser could not support?
Would the maker of this technology put effort in preventing other
implementations?

~~~
jordanthoms
The specification is pretty open AFAIK, but it's very difficult for other
browsers to implement since it requires a strong sandbox, which only chrome
has managed so far.

~~~
bad_user
Last time I looked PNaCL was not a standard, there was no proposal for one and
the documentation available was inadequate, the only real reference being the
large body of code in Chrome. Did anything change?

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RRRA
Can they ditch Silverlight too so we can -finally- get rid of plugins on the
web?!

~~~
nathankunicki
Sadly no. The one last remaining hurdle, the main reason for still using
Silverlight (And to a lesser extent, Flash), still hasn't been solved - that
of the requirement for DRM by rights holders.

Until all vendors get on board and ditch their idealistic objections (Right or
wrong), those plugins will remain.

~~~
kuschku
Actually, we have DRM in HTML5 now :/

~~~
junto
Yep and that's a travesty in itself. My two cents... DRM has no place in the
open web.

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deskamess
Interesting... so for non enterprise users it looks like applets are out. Do
not care either way, but that leaves just Firefox supporting applets across
all user bases.

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zerr
ActiveX is generally considered as an old tech, but what are the alternatives
outside the browser? I mean for desktop apps.

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Animats
Also leaving: Browser Helper Objects. This seems to be the death knell of
Flash.

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shmerl
Good. It's long overdue.

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MichaelCrawford
Yay.

