Aims for universality

Oct 16, 2009 14:46 GMT  ·  By

Mozilla's new web-based service that checks if plugins installed in Firefox are up to date will be expanded in the future to support other browsers as well. The move shows that Mozilla cares about the security of all Web users and not just its own, company officials say.

Plugins are used to integrate functionality provided by third-party applications into a browser. There are plugins that make it possible to display movies and documents in various formats directly inside the browser or execute special code. A few popular examples are the Flash Player, Adobe Acrobat and the Java Platform ones.

Some programs install their plugin inside browsers without much warning and most of them do not have automatic update mechanisms. Because of this, many users end up surfing the web with outdated versions of these plugins without even being aware that they are there in the first place.

In recent times, this has become a real problem, with hackers starting to exploit vulnerabilities in such plugins in order to infect computers with malware. These attacks are known in the security community as drive-by downloads. Mozilla has kick-started its plugin check initiative with the release of Firefox 3.5.3 and 3.0.14, when users who updated to this version were directed to a page that checked the version of their Flash Player plugin and offered a link to update it.

The company promised to release a page able to check the version of many more plugins. After beta testing it for about a week, Mozilla's web development team recently made it available to everyone. For most users, this will probably remain unknown until Firefox 3.6 is shipped, as this version of the browser will make full use of it.

But Asa Dotzler, director of community development at Mozilla, has already revealed on his blog that in the future this web-based service will be functional in other browsers as well. "Right now this page only works with Firefox, but we care about all of you and we're working to support those of you on other browsers as well," he wrote.

According to Network World, Johnathan Nightingale, Mozilla's head of security, also confirmed the plans. "Right now, we're focused on expanding our plug-in coverage and trying to bring greater consistency to the way this information is reported. Longer term, we'd like to make the page as universal as possible, both in terms of the plug-ins we check and the browsers people can use when they visit," he said.

Another long term goal, only for Firefox, though, is making it possible to update plugins directly from the Add-ons window, similar to how extension updates are currently delivered. The infosec community has so far applauded Mozilla's effort to educate users about the important aspects of keeping their plugins up to date.