Dear korvorka

The truth is you can't tell what an Active X control is going to do until it has downloaded itself and is running on your PC. Therefore, if an Active X control is needed to run something on a site, such as an advert or to brighten up a web page, you should only accept the controls if you trust the site.

Active X was developed by MS in order to make web pages more interactive, i.e. animated, bright, flashy and react to user's responses. However, in order to do this a small program has to be installed on your PC which directly communicates with the web server. This gives Active X and the web server a certain amount of control over your PC, which is usually very small.

However, here lies the danger, a malicious person can write an Active X control, with or without server controls, that can take over your PC, allow an outside agent to take control or do some damage.

So the simple thing to do is get your firewall to reject Active X controls from all but the most trusted web sites.

Finally, unless someone says different, I have never known a movie, whether mpeg, avi, wmv, mov, etc. to ask for an Active X control to be downloaded. Usually a small wmv file will ask for internet access and, when connected, try to download various (dodgy) things to your PC.

In my personal opinion, any video file that ask for something else, apart from a new codec, before playing, such as internet access, Active X controls, etc., should be deleted.




UK Bob