Forgive the technical post, but this is interesting. A while ago, Microsoft was sued by a company called Eolas over a patent infringement. Apparently ActiveX controls infringe their patent under most circumstances.
Microsoft is about to change Internet Explorer to get around this problem. ActiveX controls which load their data from a URL won't get loaded unless the user clicks OK on a dialog box that comes up. What a lame way for them to work out this patent issue!
Microsoft tells about the changes that are about to happen to IE here. IE will detect if you're loading external content by looking at the parameters to the plugin, and if it sees a URL, it'll pop up the dialog.
But then, Microsoft starts talking about another "new" feature to embedding that they're adding. It seems that you can now encode data to send into the plugin using Base64. Now, why would anyone need to encode a parameter in Base64? And why would Microsoft choose this announcement to document this feature? Could it be that you can use it to secretly send a URL into the plugin in a way that IE won't detect? Could it be that Microsoft is handing the world a convenient way around the patent? Nahh, has to be coincidence...
Incidentally, most pages incorporating Flash and Quicktime content will need to be changed as a result of this little spat between Microsoft and Eolas. But those of you using Viewpoint content won't have to change a thing! :-)
Microsoft is about to change Internet Explorer to get around this problem. ActiveX controls which load their data from a URL won't get loaded unless the user clicks OK on a dialog box that comes up. What a lame way for them to work out this patent issue!
Microsoft tells about the changes that are about to happen to IE here. IE will detect if you're loading external content by looking at the parameters to the plugin, and if it sees a URL, it'll pop up the dialog.
But then, Microsoft starts talking about another "new" feature to embedding that they're adding. It seems that you can now encode data to send into the plugin using Base64. Now, why would anyone need to encode a parameter in Base64? And why would Microsoft choose this announcement to document this feature? Could it be that you can use it to secretly send a URL into the plugin in a way that IE won't detect? Could it be that Microsoft is handing the world a convenient way around the patent? Nahh, has to be coincidence...
Incidentally, most pages incorporating Flash and Quicktime content will need to be changed as a result of this little spat between Microsoft and Eolas. But those of you using Viewpoint content won't have to change a thing! :-)
