Direcly launch exe

Discussion of features in Mozilla Firefox
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Stefan
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Post by Stefan »

lucas wrote:
Stefan wrote:This is not about software you choose to download yourself

actually, i belive it is and if you had read thumperward's post you would know that


I do read peoples posts before I reply. And you are welcome to have a different opinon if you like.
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Stefan
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Post by Stefan »

Jcei wrote:How many Exe are downloaded and aren't launched immediatly ??


Quite a few I assume. At the least I would want to do a virusscan on it before I launched it, if it wasn't from a "trusted site".
Also, many installers require that you reboot your system after installation, so I usually finish up my browsing and and enyting else I would be doing before I even take a look at the downloaded item.

I'm sure however if the demand is there someone will make a nice little extension to add a contextmenu when rightclicking links of "download and launch". Not likely that you will see this in a default Phoenix though.
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Thumper
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Post by Thumper »

In actual fact, it's basically just hacked in to prevent ".exe" from being run immediately as opposed to any other file type. Getting around it shoudln't be too difficult. Fair enough that this is a design choice, but as has been said it doesn't prevent .msi for instance.

re to the point about you reading my post - evidently this isn't a case of opinion, it's a matter of you not understanding. There's a checkbox to prevent things from automatically being run as opposed to being downloaded. In IE 6 and Mozilla, this checkbox can be set to automatically run as opposed to download for all extensions except .exe. However, IE also allows the running of executables - but it cannot have the checkbox set for automatic running, which appears to be what you were suggesting. I said this all in my first post on the thread.

- Chris
Jcei
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Post by Jcei »

Stefan wrote:Quite a few I assume. At the least I would want to do a virusscan on it before I launched it, if it wasn't from a "trusted site".

Recent antivirus scan program before they are launched.
Stefan wrote:Also, many installers require that you reboot your system after installation, so I usually finish up my browsing and and enyting else I would be doing before I even take a look at the downloaded item.


Most of the installers don't require to reboot windows, and for the rare who does, it has an option "reboot later".
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jonasj
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Post by jonasj »

thumperward wrote:That rubbish about IE downloading viruses is pure FUD. I've never heard of anyone actually getting attacked by a virus while web-browsing.


Oh yeah? Then look at this: <a href="http://www.malware.com/stench.html">Silent delivery and installation of an executable on the target computer, no client input other than viewing a web page</a>.

And the list of <a href="http://www.pivx.com/larholm/unpatched/">unpatched IE vulnerabilities</a> is as always worth bookmarking.
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Thumper
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Post by Thumper »

For the hard of reading, can I reiterate that I'm not asking for IE's security holes to be opened up, but simply for the option to allow (by means of a permission dialogue box) an application to be opened by clicking a link to a .exe file? I am not asking for the ability for Mozilla to silently open things behind the user's back!

And no, they AREN'T the same thing. Sheesh.

- Chris
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