HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

ActiveX is a
deprecated In several fields, especially computing, deprecation is the discouragement of use of some terminology, feature, design, or practice, typically because it has been superseded or is no longer considered efficient or safe, without completely removing ...
software framework created by
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
that adapts its earlier Component Object Model (COM) and
Object Linking and Embedding Object Linking & Embedding (OLE) is a proprietary technology developed by Microsoft that allows embedding and linking to documents and other objects. For developers, it brought OLE Control Extension (OCX), a way to develop and use custom user i ...
(OLE) technologies for content downloaded from a network, particularly from the
World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet. Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web se ...
. Microsoft introduced ActiveX in 1996. In principle, ActiveX is not dependent on
Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
operating systems, but in practice, most ActiveX controls only run on Windows. Most also require the client to be running on an
x86 x86 (also known as 80x86 or the 8086 family) is a family of complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set architectures initially developed by Intel based on the Intel 8086 microprocessor and its 8088 variant. The 8086 was intr ...
-based computer because ActiveX controls contain compiled code. ActiveX is still supported as of Windows 10 through
Internet Explorer 11 Internet Explorer 11 (IE11) is the eleventh, final, and now deprecated version of the Internet Explorer web browser. It was initially included in the release of Windows 8.1, Windows RT 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2 on October 17, 2013, and was ...
, while ActiveX is not supported in their default web browser
Microsoft Edge Microsoft Edge is a proprietary, cross-platform web browser created by Microsoft. It was first released in 2015 as part of Windows 10 and Xbox One and later ported to other platforms as a fork of Google's Chromium open-source project: Android ...
(which has a different, incompatible extension system, as it is based on
Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...
's Chromium project).


ActiveX controls

ActiveX was one of the major technologies used in component-based software engineering. Compared with JavaBeans, ActiveX supports more
programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language. The description of a programming ...
s, but JavaBeans supports more platforms. ActiveX is supported in many rapid application development technologies, such as
Active Template Library The Active Template Library (ATL) is a set of template-based C++ classes developed by Microsoft, intended to simplify the programming of Component Object Model (COM) objects. The COM support in Microsoft Visual C++ allows developers to create a v ...
,
Delphi Delphi (; ), in legend previously called Pytho (Πυθώ), in ancient times was a sacred precinct that served as the seat of Pythia, the major oracle who was consulted about important decisions throughout the ancient classical world. The oracle ...
, JavaBeans,
Microsoft Foundation Class Library Microsoft Foundation Class Library (MFC) is a C++ object-oriented library for developing desktop applications for Windows. MFC was introduced by Microsoft in 1992 and quickly gained widespread use. While Microsoft has introduced alternative app ...
, Qt,
Visual Basic Visual Basic is a name for a family of programming languages from Microsoft. It may refer to: * Visual Basic .NET (now simply referred to as "Visual Basic"), the current version of Visual Basic launched in 2002 which runs on .NET * Visual Basic ( ...
,
Windows Forms Windows Forms (WinForms) is a free and open-source graphical (GUI) class library included as a part of Microsoft .NET, .NET Framework or Mono Framework, providing a platform to write client applications for desktop, laptop, and tablet PCs. Whil ...
and
wxWidgets wxWidgets (formerly wxWindows) is a widget toolkit and tools library for creating graphical user interfaces (GUIs) for cross-platform applications. wxWidgets enables a program's GUI code to compile and run on several computer platforms with mini ...
, to enable application developers to embed ActiveX controls into their products. Many Microsoft Windows applications—including many of those from Microsoft itself, such as
Internet Explorer Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated IE or MSIE) is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft which was used in the Windows line of operating systems ( ...
,
Microsoft Office Microsoft Office, or simply Office, is the former name of a family of client software, server software, and services developed by Microsoft. It was first announced by Bill Gates on August 1, 1988, at COMDEX in Las Vegas. Initially a marketi ...
, Microsoft Visual Studio, and
Windows Media Player Windows Media Player (WMP) is the first media player (application software), media player and media library application that was developed by Microsoft for playing sound reproduction, audio, video and viewing images on personal computers runnin ...
—use ActiveX controls to build their feature-set and also encapsulate their own functionality as ActiveX controls which can then be embedded into other applications. Internet Explorer also allows the embedding of ActiveX controls in web pages.


History

Faced with the complexity of OLE 2.0 and with poor support for COM in MFC, Microsoft simplified the specification and rebranded the technology as ActiveX in 1996. Even after simplification, users still required controls to implement about six core interfaces. In response to this complexity, Microsoft produced wizards, ATL base classes, macros and C++ language extensions to make it simpler to write controls. Starting with Internet Explorer 3.0 (1996), Microsoft added support to host ActiveX controls within HTML content. If the browser encountered a page specifying an ActiveX control via an OBJECT tag (the OBJECT tag was added to the
HTML 3.2 The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaScript ...
specification by Charlie Kindel, the Microsoft representative to the
W3C The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web. Founded in 1994 and led by Tim Berners-Lee, the consortium is made up of member organizations that maintain full-time staff working to ...
at the time) it would automatically download and install the control with little or no user intervention. This made the web "richer" but provoked objections (since such controls, in practice, ran only on Windows, and separate controls were required for each supported platform: one for Windows 3.1/Windows NT 3.51, one for Windows NT/95, and one for Macintosh F68K/PowerPC.) and security risks (especially given the lack of user intervention). Microsoft subsequently introduced security measures to make browsing including ActiveX safer. For example: * digital signing of installation packages (
Cabinet Cabinet or The Cabinet may refer to: Furniture * Cabinetry, a box-shaped piece of furniture with doors and/or drawers * Display cabinet, a piece of furniture with one or more transparent glass sheets or transparent polycarbonate sheets * Filing ...
files and executables) * controls must explicitly declare themselves safe for scripting * increasingly stringent default security settings * Internet Explorer maintains a blacklist of bad controls ActiveX was controversial from the start; while Microsoft claimed programming ease and good performance compared to
Java applet Java applets were small applications written in the Java programming language, or another programming language that compiles to Java bytecode, and delivered to users in the form of Java bytecode. The user launched the Java applet from a ...
s in its marketing materials, critics of ActiveX were quick to point out security issues and lack of portability, making it impractical for use outside protected intranets. The ActiveX security model relied almost entirely on identifying trusted component developers using a
code signing Code signing is the process of digitally signing executables and scripts to confirm the software author and guarantee that the code has not been altered or corrupted since it was signed. The process employs the use of a cryptographic hash to v ...
technology called
Authenticode Code signing is the process of digitally Digital signatures and law, signing executables and scripting language, scripts to confirm the software author and guarantee that the code has not been altered or corrupted since it was signed. The process ...
. Developers had to register with
Verisign Verisign Inc. is an American company based in Reston, Virginia, United States that operates a diverse array of network infrastructure, including two of the Internet's thirteen root nameservers, the authoritative registry for the , , and gene ...
(US$20 per year for individuals, $400 for corporations) and sign a contract, promising not to develop malware. Identified code would then run inside the web browser with full permissions, meaning that any bug in the code was a potential security issue; this contrasts with the sandboxing already used in Java at the time.


Platform support

In October 1996, Microsoft released a beta version of the ActiveX
Software Development Kit A software development kit (SDK) is a collection of software development tools in one installable package. They facilitate the creation of applications by having a compiler, debugger and sometimes a software framework. They are normally specific ...
(SDK) for the
Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and software en ...
, including a plug-in for
Netscape Navigator Netscape Navigator was a web browser, and the original browser of the Netscape line, from versions 1 to 4.08, and 9.x. It was the flagship product of the Netscape Communications Corp and was the dominant web browser in terms of usage share in ...
on the Mac, and announced its plan to support ActiveX on
Solaris Solaris may refer to: Arts and entertainment Literature, television and film * ''Solaris'' (novel), a 1961 science fiction novel by Stanisław Lem ** ''Solaris'' (1968 film), directed by Boris Nirenburg ** ''Solaris'' (1972 film), directed by ...
later that year. Six months and two more beta releases later, there had yet to be any commercially available Macintosh ActiveX plugins. In 1997, NCompass Labs in cooperation with Microsoft released a plug-in for
Netscape Navigator Netscape Navigator was a web browser, and the original browser of the Netscape line, from versions 1 to 4.08, and 9.x. It was the flagship product of the Netscape Communications Corp and was the dominant web browser in terms of usage share in ...
to support ActiveX. Documentation for ActiveX core technology resides at The Open Group and may be read for free. Despite Microsoft's previous efforts to make ActiveX cross-platform, most ActiveX controls will not work on all platforms, so using ActiveX controls to implement essential functionality of a web page restricts its usefulness.
South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...
has started to remove this technology from their public websites in order to make their web site accessible to more platforms. While Microsoft made significant effort to push the cross-platform aspect of ActiveX by way of publishing the API, ultimately the
cross-platform In computing, cross-platform software (also called multi-platform software, platform-agnostic software, or platform-independent software) is computer software that is designed to work in several computing platforms. Some cross-platform software r ...
effort failed due to the ActiveX controls being written in C or
C++ C++ (pronounced "C plus plus") is a high-level general-purpose programming language created by Danish computer scientist Bjarne Stroustrup as an extension of the C programming language, or "C with Classes". The language has expanded significan ...
and being compiled in
Intel x86 x86 (also known as 80x86 or the 8086 family) is a family of complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set architectures initially developed by Intel based on the Intel 8086 microprocessor and its 8088 variant. The 8086 was intr ...
Assembly language, making them executable only on Windows machines where they can call the standard
Win32 The Windows API, informally WinAPI, is Microsoft's core set of application programming interfaces (APIs) available in the Microsoft Windows operating systems. The name Windows API collectively refers to several different platform implementations th ...
APIs. Microsoft dropped ActiveX support from the
Windows Store Microsoft Store (formerly known as Windows Store) is a digital distribution platform operated by Microsoft. It started as an app store for Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 as the primary means of distributing Universal Windows Platform app ...
edition of Internet Explorer 10 in
Windows 8 Windows 8 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012; it was subsequently made available for downl ...
. In 2015, Microsoft released
Microsoft Edge Microsoft Edge is a proprietary, cross-platform web browser created by Microsoft. It was first released in 2015 as part of Windows 10 and Xbox One and later ported to other platforms as a fork of Google's Chromium open-source project: Android ...
, the replacement for Internet Explorer with no support for ActiveX, this event marked the end of ActiveX technology in Microsoft's web browser development.


ActiveX in non-Internet Explorer applications

* Mozilla ActiveX Control was last updated in late 2005, and runs in Firefox 1.5. *ScriptActive for
Netscape Navigator Netscape Navigator was a web browser, and the original browser of the Netscape line, from versions 1 to 4.08, and 9.x. It was the flagship product of the Netscape Communications Corp and was the dominant web browser in terms of usage share in ...
last updated in 1997 can run ActiveX controls but requires a special HTML tag. *Running ActiveX scripts in
Google Chrome Google Chrome is a cross-platform web browser developed by Google. It was first released in 2008 for Microsoft Windows, built with free software components from Apple WebKit and Mozilla Firefox. Versions were later released for Linux, macOS ...
is possible through the utilization of several extensions, including one which emulates an Internet Explorer tab within the Chrome application.


Other ActiveX technologies

Microsoft has developed a large number of products and software platforms using ActiveX objects. They are still used (e.g., websites still using ASP): *
Active Scripting Active Scripting (formerly known as ActiveX Scripting) is the technology used in Windows to implement component-based scripting support. It is based on OLE Automation (part of COM) and allows installation of additional scripting engines in the form ...
(formerly known as ActiveX Scripting) is the technology used in Windows to bridge scripting engines like
JScript JScript is Microsoft's legacy dialect of the ECMAScript standard that is used in Microsoft's Internet Explorer 11 and older. JScript is implemented as an Active Scripting engine. This means that it can be "plugged in" to OLE Automation applicati ...
, VB Script or
ActivePerl ActivePerl is a distribution of Perl from ActiveState (formerly part of Sophos) for Windows, macOS, Linux, Solaris, AIX and HP-UX. A few main editions are available, including: Community (free, for development use only), and several paid tiers u ...
and hosting applications like Internet Explorer,
Active Server Pages Active Server Pages (ASP) is Microsoft's first server-side scripting language and engine for dynamic web pages. It was first released in December 1996, before being superseded in January 2002 by ASP.NET. History Initially released as an add ...
, or third-party applications that implement a scripting host. *
ActiveX Document ActiveX Document (also known as DocObject or DocObj) is a Microsoft technology that allows users to view and edit Microsoft Word, Excel, and PDF documents inside web browsers. It defines a set of Component Object Model coding contracts between ...
is a Microsoft technology that allows users to view and edit Microsoft Word, Excel, and PDF documents inside web browsers. * Active Messaging, later renamed
Collaboration Data Objects Collaboration Data Objects (CDO), previously known as OLE Messaging or Active Messaging, is an application programming interface included with Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Exchange Server products. The library allows developers to access the Gl ...
*
Active Server Pages Active Server Pages (ASP) is Microsoft's first server-side scripting language and engine for dynamic web pages. It was first released in December 1996, before being superseded in January 2002 by ASP.NET. History Initially released as an add ...
(ASP) *
ActiveMovie ActiveMovie was the immediate ancestor of Windows Media Player 6.x, and was a streaming media technology now known as DirectShow, developed by Microsoft to replace Video for Windows. ActiveMovie allows users to view media streams, whether distri ...
, later renamed
DirectShow DirectShow (sometimes abbreviated as DS or DShow), codename Quartz, is a multimedia framework and API produced by Microsoft for software developers to perform various operations with media files or streams. It is the replacement for Microsoft's ear ...
*
ActiveX Data Objects In computing, Microsoft's ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) comprises a set of Component Object Model (COM) objects for accessing data sources. A part of MDAC (Microsoft Data Access Components), it provides a middleware layer between programming lan ...
(ADO) * ActiveX Streaming Format (ASF), renamed Advanced Streaming Format, then to Advanced Systems Format


See also


References


External links


Activating ActiveX Controls
{{Web interfaces Microsoft application programming interfaces Internet Explorer Software add-ons