Mozilla Firefox and ActiveX

[Cwazee Yeti]

Hi folks,

Does anyone here know how I can check to see if I have the Firefox
ActiveX plug-in installed (shiver, shiver)? Here's why:

I use Mcafee VirusScan Home v9 on my PC. Mcafee uses IE and ActiveX to
run manual updates of virus signature files. But like all things IE, it
doesn't work properly. So I tried it on Firefox, when I did this,
Mcafee installed something called "Mcafee Clinic Activator Plug-in"
onto Firefox and the virus signature updates worked fine.

What I'm afraid of now is that this "Mcafee Clinic Activator Plug-in"
ActiveX enabled my Firefox installation. I contacted Mcafee's online
Technical Support to find out what this plug-in does but it was
useless... they either don't even know themselves what this plug-in
does or don't like to recognize the existence of any browser except IE.
Everytime I asked them a question they would say, "you should use IE."

So, does anyone know how I can check to see if my Firefox has been
ActiveX enabled or perhaps know what this "Mcafee Clinic Activator
Plug-in" does?

Thank you very much in advance!

CY

[FACE]

For this part of your question, enter "about:plugins" on the FF screen and
it will list them. -- FACE

Post by Cwazee Yeti
Hi folks,
Does anyone here know how I can check to see if I have the Firefox

[Cwazee Yeti]

Brilliant! Thanks, Face!

Is there anyway to uninstall a plug-in? I tried the scorched earth
method of uninstalling and re-installing FF it's still there. I'm
guessing that FF keeps plug-ins separately like it does with your
preferences and bookmarks.

CY

[Ron Hunter]

Post by Cwazee Yeti
Brilliant! Thanks, Face!
Is there anyway to uninstall a plug-in? I tried the scorched earth
method of uninstalling and re-installing FF it's still there. I'm
guessing that FF keeps plug-ins separately like it does with your
preferences and bookmarks.
CY

If you have a 'plugins' folder in a Mozilla directory, FF will (usually)
find it.

[Ron Hunter]

Post by Cwazee Yeti
Hi folks,
Does anyone here know how I can check to see if I have the Firefox
I use Mcafee VirusScan Home v9 on my PC. Mcafee uses IE and ActiveX to
run manual updates of virus signature files. But like all things IE, it
doesn't work properly. So I tried it on Firefox, when I did this,
Mcafee installed something called "Mcafee Clinic Activator Plug-in"
onto Firefox and the virus signature updates worked fine.
What I'm afraid of now is that this "Mcafee Clinic Activator Plug-in"
ActiveX enabled my Firefox installation. I contacted Mcafee's online
Technical Support to find out what this plug-in does but it was
useless... they either don't even know themselves what this plug-in
does or don't like to recognize the existence of any browser except IE.
Everytime I asked them a question they would say, "you should use IE."
So, does anyone know how I can check to see if my Firefox has been
ActiveX enabled or perhaps know what this "Mcafee Clinic Activator
Plug-in" does?
Thank you very much in advance!
CY

When they say 'You should use IE." the next time, just say, "No, I
should use Norton. Bye."

[Leonidas Jones]

Post by Ron Hunter

Post by Cwazee Yeti
Hi folks,
Does anyone here know how I can check to see if I have the Firefox
I use Mcafee VirusScan Home v9 on my PC. Mcafee uses IE and ActiveX to
run manual updates of virus signature files. But like all things IE, it
doesn't work properly. So I tried it on Firefox, when I did this,
Mcafee installed something called "Mcafee Clinic Activator Plug-in"
onto Firefox and the virus signature updates worked fine.
What I'm afraid of now is that this "Mcafee Clinic Activator Plug-in"
ActiveX enabled my Firefox installation. I contacted Mcafee's online
Technical Support to find out what this plug-in does but it was
useless... they either don't even know themselves what this plug-in
does or don't like to recognize the existence of any browser except IE.
Everytime I asked them a question they would say, "you should use IE."
So, does anyone know how I can check to see if my Firefox has been
ActiveX enabled or perhaps know what this "Mcafee Clinic Activator
Plug-in" does?
Thank you very much in advance!
CY

When they say 'You should use IE." the next time, just say, "No, I
should use Norton. Bye."

Better yet, AVG (free).

Lee

[Ron Hunter]

Post by Leonidas Jones

Post by Ron Hunter

Post by Cwazee Yeti
Hi folks,
Does anyone here know how I can check to see if I have the Firefox
I use Mcafee VirusScan Home v9 on my PC. Mcafee uses IE and ActiveX to
run manual updates of virus signature files. But like all things IE, it
doesn't work properly. So I tried it on Firefox, when I did this,
Mcafee installed something called "Mcafee Clinic Activator Plug-in"
onto Firefox and the virus signature updates worked fine.
What I'm afraid of now is that this "Mcafee Clinic Activator Plug-in"
ActiveX enabled my Firefox installation. I contacted Mcafee's online
Technical Support to find out what this plug-in does but it was
useless... they either don't even know themselves what this plug-in
does or don't like to recognize the existence of any browser except IE.
Everytime I asked them a question they would say, "you should use IE."
So, does anyone know how I can check to see if my Firefox has been
ActiveX enabled or perhaps know what this "Mcafee Clinic Activator
Plug-in" does?
Thank you very much in advance!
CY

When they say 'You should use IE." the next time, just say, "No, I
should use Norton. Bye."

Better yet, AVG (free).
Lee

Doesn't have the impact. BTW, I tried AVG once, didn't work for me.

[FACE]

Post by Ron Hunter

Post by Leonidas Jones
Better yet, AVG (free).
Lee

Doesn't have the impact. BTW, I tried AVG once, didn't work for me.

I use AVG free as a virus/trojan/worm checker. Seems to work just fine and
every morning it finds the "ringer" trojan I keep around in a zip file for
check purposes. (That lets me know that it is working)

However..........

I chose to disable the email checking function since it takes over your
email client and queues messages to send, whether you want to cancel the
send or not. (Yes, i know messages queued for send could be manually
canceled through the sub-client, but it becomes more trouble than worth.)

FACE

[Ron Hunter]

Post by FACE

Post by Ron Hunter

Post by Leonidas Jones
Better yet, AVG (free).
Lee

Doesn't have the impact. BTW, I tried AVG once, didn't work for me.

I use AVG free as a virus/trojan/worm checker. Seems to work just fine and
every morning it finds the "ringer" trojan I keep around in a zip file for
check purposes. (That lets me know that it is working)
However..........
I chose to disable the email checking function since it takes over your
email client and queues messages to send, whether you want to cancel the
send or not. (Yes, i know messages queued for send could be manually
canceled through the sub-client, but it becomes more trouble than worth.)
FACE

If I recall correctly, the reason I dumped it was because I couldn't
send, or receive email... I couldn't figure any way to turn off that
check. Besides, the inability to check incoming email would invalidate
a major reason for havign an AV program.

[FACE]

Post by Ron Hunter

Post by FACE
I chose to disable the email checking function since it takes over your
email client and queues messages to send, whether you want to cancel the
send or not. (Yes, i know messages queued for send could be manually
canceled through the sub-client, but it becomes more trouble than worth.)
FACE

If I recall correctly, the reason I dumped it was because I couldn't
send, or receive email... I couldn't figure any way to turn off that
check. Besides, the inability to check incoming email would invalidate
a major reason for havign an AV program.

Since my ISP has an AV check, it was a duplication of effort, though that in
itself is not a bad thing. I checked it by attempting to send my zip file
with the trojan in it as an attachment to myself. The ISP refused the
upload with appropriate remark.

(FWIW and i realize this is a past tense issue, but for one place, you can
disable the email scan right on the face of the AVG 7.0 Control Center.)

FACE

[Ron Hunter]

Post by FACE

Post by Ron Hunter

Post by FACE
I chose to disable the email checking function since it takes over your
email client and queues messages to send, whether you want to cancel the
send or not. (Yes, i know messages queued for send could be manually
canceled through the sub-client, but it becomes more trouble than worth.)
FACE

If I recall correctly, the reason I dumped it was because I couldn't
send, or receive email... I couldn't figure any way to turn off that
check. Besides, the inability to check incoming email would invalidate
a major reason for havign an AV program.

Since my ISP has an AV check, it was a duplication of effort, though that in
itself is not a bad thing. I checked it by attempting to send my zip file
with the trojan in it as an attachment to myself. The ISP refused the
upload with appropriate remark.
(FWIW and i realize this is a past tense issue, but for one place, you can
disable the email scan right on the face of the AVG 7.0 Control Center.)
FACE

Yeah, well MINE does too (have an AV Check), but I got one of those
emails the other day and it had the SwenA virus in it. Naturally,
Norton killed it. You would think the ISP would have caught something
THAT old!

[Luke]

Post by Ron Hunter

Post by FACE

Post by Ron Hunter

Post by Leonidas Jones
Better yet, AVG (free).
Lee

Doesn't have the impact. BTW, I tried AVG once, didn't work for me.

I use AVG free as a virus/trojan/worm checker. Seems to work just fine and
every morning it finds the "ringer" trojan I keep around in a zip file for
check purposes. (That lets me know that it is working)
However..........
I chose to disable the email checking function since it takes over your
email client and queues messages to send, whether you want to cancel the
send or not. (Yes, i know messages queued for send could be manually
canceled through the sub-client, but it becomes more trouble than worth.)
FACE

If I recall correctly, the reason I dumped it was because I couldn't
send, or receive email... I couldn't figure any way to turn off that
check. Besides, the inability to check incoming email would invalidate
a major reason for havign an AV program.

Why? Anything you launch or launches automatically would be caught by
the resident scanner, wouldn't it? So (even though I do use AVG e-mail
scanning) e-mail scanning is redundant.

[Ron Hunter]

Post by Luke

Post by Ron Hunter

Post by FACE

Post by Ron Hunter

Post by Leonidas Jones
Better yet, AVG (free).
Lee

Doesn't have the impact. BTW, I tried AVG once, didn't work for me.

I use AVG free as a virus/trojan/worm checker. Seems to work just fine and
every morning it finds the "ringer" trojan I keep around in a zip file for
check purposes. (That lets me know that it is working)
However..........
I chose to disable the email checking function since it takes over your
email client and queues messages to send, whether you want to cancel the
send or not. (Yes, i know messages queued for send could be manually
canceled through the sub-client, but it becomes more trouble than worth.)
FACE

If I recall correctly, the reason I dumped it was because I couldn't
send, or receive email... I couldn't figure any way to turn off that
check. Besides, the inability to check incoming email would invalidate
a major reason for havign an AV program.

Why? Anything you launch or launches automatically would be caught by
the resident scanner, wouldn't it? So (even though I do use AVG e-mail
scanning) e-mail scanning is redundant.

Yes, and so is having a NAT and Firewall, but then there are suspenders,
and belts, and some people wear both...

[Luke]

[snip]

Post by Ron Hunter

Post by Luke

Post by Ron Hunter
If I recall correctly, the reason I dumped it was because I couldn't
send, or receive email... I couldn't figure any way to turn off that
check. Besides, the inability to check incoming email would invalidate
a major reason for havign an AV program.

Why? Anything you launch or launches automatically would be caught by
the resident scanner, wouldn't it? So (even though I do use AVG e-mail
scanning) e-mail scanning is redundant.

Yes, and so is having a NAT and Firewall, but then there are suspenders,
and belts, and some people wear both...

No. The correct analogy to running a resident scanner and e-mail
scanner would be to using two routers with NAT in series, or running
two software firewalls, or wearing two pairs suspenders or two belts.

With e-mail and resident scanning files are being checked twice by the
same program with the same definitions and the same heuristics, and
will give the same result.

Bear in mind, I do use AVG's e-mail scanner. But it's a mere
convenience to have nasty attachments identified in the incoming
e-mail and whisked to the virus vault as SOP is to not open anything
unknown, to note extensions before opening, scan all files before
opening, and run AVG resident so as to stop any suspected nasties.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with using an e-mail scanner, I
just don't see it as vital to an AV program. Thing is, having used AVG
6 for years, when AVG 7 came out, the e-mail scanner at first didn't
work for me. I spent maybe two minutes trying to get it to work, then
forgot about it, till I got around to reinstalling, removing the
personal e-mail scanner and replacing it with the correct module. I
had the same protection without the e-mail scanner as with it.