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Internet Explorer ActiveX The ActiveX tool gives you control over the ActiveX programs (also called ActiveX web controls) that are downloaded by Internet Explorer from the web. Some web sites use ActiveX programs in order to offer you a richer experience. An example of a web site which uses ActiveX programs is the Microsoft web site. Many pages of the Microsoft web site use ActiveX programs.
For the purpose of this discussion an ActiveX program downloaded from the web is just like a normal Windows program which runs on your computer. When you browse a web page which contains an ActiveX control, Internet Explorer downloads the ActiveX control to your computer and runs it. Depending on your Internet Explorer settings, Internet Explorer may ask or not for your permission to download the ActiveX control. Or, it may be configured to reject ActiveX programs, and if so it will simply not download ActiveX programs and not ask you anything.
One problem with ActiveX programs is that an ActiveX program, like a normal Windows program, can do to your computer almost anything it wishes. For example, it can delete your files, or, if it doesn't work correctly (due to a programmer error or bug) it may crash Internet Explorer. So from a security point of view, ActiveX controls used on the web are a bad technology. Yes, it can provide you with a much richer web browsing experience than the standard HTML web pages, but if an ActiveX program is downloaded from the web and executed, it can crash your Internet Explorer browser, crash or computer, or even wipe out your documents and files. This is why the default setting of Internet Explorer is to ask you whether or not to download ActiveX programs. Also, this is why we recommend you to accept ActiveX downloads only from the web sites you 100% trust. Please note that this page refers only to ActiveX controls downloaded from the web. There are other kinds of ActiveX controls which are installed by programs such as Microsoft Word. These other ActiveX controls which are installed by programs such as Microsoft Word or Microsoft Office pose very little security risk, and are necessary for the normal functioning of your computer. In contrast, the ActiveX controls or programs downloaded from the web are just an optional part of the web experience, and can be removed without any problems. Once an ActiveX program has been downloaded from the web, Internet Explorer keeps it in a special folder on your computer's hard-disk. Whenever a web page contains that ActiveX control, Internet Explorer runs the ActiveX control (from the local copy on your hard-disk) without asking you (because it considers that you already accepted to run that ActiveX program). The ActiveX tool shows you the ActiveX programs that have already been downloaded by Internet Explorer and are kept on your hard-disk, and allows you to delete, disable or enable ActiveX programs. Removing or disabling the web ActiveX programs that Internet Explorer has downloaded can fix some Internet Explorer crashes, so Internet Explorer won't crash anymore. It can also improve the stability of your computer (since Internet Explorer is an important component of Windows and is used internally by several programs). The upper list contains the ActiveX programs that have already been downloaded to your computer. You can use the Remove button to remove an ActiveX program from your computer. Or, if you are not sure if you want to remove a certain ActiveX program or not, you can just disable the program by pressing the Disable button. When you press the Disable button, the program will still exist on your hard-disk but it won't be accessible to Internet Explorer, so Internet Explorer can't run it anymore. If you discover that a certain web site does not display properly without a certain ActiveX program, you can enable that program at any time by pressing the Enable button, or you can simply allow Internet Explorer to download that ActiveX program again. The Refresh lists button reads again the information about the ActiveX programs on your computer, and refreshes the lists with the new information. |
