Daniel Veditz writes: > Firefox does not install flash. If flash is not installed and you go to > a page with flash content (or other unknown plugin types) the <embed> > space contains a picture of a puzzle piece which you can click to > install the handler (if we know about it). > > Something else installed flash for you. Possibly it was pre-installed on > your machine when you got it.
I found a folder called Macromed in \WINDOWS\system32 that contains OCX files (ActiveX components, if I'm not mistaken). Unfortunately, the system won't let me delete it, and there's no uninstallation procedure in the Control Panel for it. I think it only applies to MSIE, though, and in MSIE I already have ActiveX turned off. > In Firefox plugins are either in a "plugin" subdirectory of the install > directory, or there's a pointer in the windows registry under > HKLM\SOFTWARE\MozillaPlugins I found HKLM\Software\Mozilla, but the only reference I could find was a key called "plugins" which pointed to a path, but nothing else. > typing about:plugins in the location bar will reveal all loaded plugins. That showed me a DLL for Flash that turned out to be hiding inside Opera's directory. Opera must have installed it (another nail in the Opera coffin, as far as I'm concerned--I haven't yet found a reason to use Opera). I deinstalled Opera and the DLL went away with the deinstallation. This fixed the problem with Firefox. So apparently Firefox didn't install Flash behind my back, but it did quietly find it and start using it. I'd prefer that it not do anything without my explicit approval. I'll try reinstalling Opera (since I've already paid for it and I have to test with it sometimes) and see if I can tell it not to install Flash. If not, then Opera is too insecure to continue using. -- Anthony _______________________________________________ Mozilla-security mailing list [email protected] http://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/mozilla-security
