Friday is Free Day – Windows Media Player Browser Plugin

When a streaming audio/video links to .asf or .asx files (Windows media), chances are you won’t be prompted to download the plugin if you’re a Firefox or Google Chrome user. To be able to play these streaming media files, you’ll either need to use Internet Explorer as your browser or install the Windows Media Player plugin for your browser.

You may download the plugin from the Interoperability Bridges and Labs Center website. Download and run the installer and start your browser. This plugin works on Firefox (even up to FF5 Beta) and Google Chrome.

Friday is Free Day – CCleaner

Everybody loves freewares – from audio editors and graphics design to games and computer maintenance. If you can just maximize or use it efficiently, you’ll get almost the same result as its paid version counterpart.

My thumb drive is full of freewares 🙂 and I use them most for computer maintenance. I just thought of sharing them and that’s how the “Friday is Free Day” concept came up. Every 1st and last Fridays of the month, I’ll feature freewares that may be essential to computer users. It could be for Windows, Linux, or Mac. If you want a freeware to be featured, send me an email at aenguillo [at] gmail [dot] com.

CCleaner

First up – CCleaner.

With this freeware from Piriform, you can recover drive space as it removes unused and useless files like history, temporary files, and cookies created by web browsers. On the other hand, Windows’  Recycle Bin and Recent Documents folder are cleaned while temporary and log files are deleted. However, only the current user’s temporary files and folders are cleaned.

CCleaner also has a registry cleaner to locate and fix problems in the Registry. An msconfig-like utility is also added which alters Windows’ startup programs. And finally the program may also be used to uninstall programs.

This application is now on version 2.31. It was rebuilt in C++ and is compatible to 64-bit versions of Windows. If you’re having problems with your current version of CCleaner, it is advised that you install and download its version 2.

You may download CCleaner from Piriform’s website or from FileHippo.

Internet Explorer Security Hole

Internet Explorer

Microsoft announced a security hole found in Internet Explorer. It was reported that Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 users are vulnerable to this problem.

According to the advisory on its website, the vulnerability is in the Microsoft Video ActiveX Control which is being used by the browser. A victim doesn’t have to do anything to be infected, just visiting a hacked website infects your system since code execution is done remotely. Once exploited, the attacker could gain the same user rights as the local user and take control of the machine.

The company recommends vulnerable users to disable the problematic part of the browser which may be done from the Microsoft website. Microsoft is also currently working to develop a security update.

Sources:

Microsoft website