![]() ![]() ![]() It provides a utility for developers to create branded generic web browser toolbars. About (from Conduit)Ĭonduit is a toolbar monetization platform for software publishers. From the license agreement - "By Using a Conduit Software you may enable Conduit to access, use and collect a variety of information, both personal and non-personal, regarding your Internet Browser, your browsing habits, and information about your computer". The company, based on the EULA, will automatically download and install remote updates as well as collect and store details about the user's web browsing activities and store it locally on the PC in order to interact with the toolbar application to suggest additional services or provide more targeted advertising. Should the software be removed from the user's computer, the settings will need to be manually reverted back. ![]() During installation, the user might be given the option to modify the home and search pages, however this is often checked by default and overlooked. The toolbar is generally bundled with 3rd party developer programs in order to help monetize free (and some paid) software. The toolbar is an advertising-supported program that is designed to display ads within the bar itself and will modify the browser's home page and search settings in order to collect usage statistics. A representative was not able to immediately clarify the situation.Realplayer Toolbar is a 'Community Toolbar' from Conduit, that plugs into the various web browsers such as IE, Chrome and Firefox. It's not clear if Mozilla also plans to completely remove support for NPAPI plug-ins from Firefox in the future. The Firefox click-to-play feature is still in beta testing stages and can only be enabled at this time by accessing the browser's advanced about:config options. Mozilla already blocks some outdated plug-ins that pose security risks and in January announced plans to block all plug-ins except for the most recent version of Flash Player once its work on the click-to-play user interface is complete. Schuh also noted that Mozilla plans to start blocking NPAPI plug-ins by default in December 2013 with the release of Firefox 26. Existing installations will continue to work until Chrome fully removes support for NPAPI." "In September 2014, all existing NPAPI-based Apps and Extensions will be unpublished. "Developers will be able to update their existing NPAPI-based Apps and Extensions until May 2014, when they will be removed from the Web Store home page, search results, and category pages," Schuh said. Starting Monday, no new NPAPI-based apps or extensions will be accepted into the Chrome Web Store, the central repository for Chrome apps and extensions. That is expected to happen before the end of 2014, but the process of phasing out NPAPI support has already begun. "Eventually, however, NPAPI support will be completely removed from Chrome." "In the short term, end users and enterprise administrators will be able to whitelist specific plug-ins," Schuh said. Java was used by almost 9 percent of users, but it's already on the list of blocked plug-ins. The plug-ins that will be temporarily whitelisted will be Silverlight, Unity, Google Earth, Google Talk and Facebook Video, as they were used by more than 5 percent of users during the past month. A temporary exception will be made for the most popular NPAPI plug-ins that are not already being blocked for security reasons in order to avoid disruption to users, he said. "Starting in January 2014, Chrome will block webpage-instantiated NPAPI plug-ins by default on the Stable channel," Schuh said. While click-to-play has been available in Chrome for several years, the feature has not been enabled by default, except for a number of plug-ins that Google considered to present a higher security risk, like Java, RealPlayer, QuickTime, Shockwave, Windows Media Player and Adobe Reader prior to Adobe Reader X. One month later it did the same for Chrome on Mac OS X. In August 2012, following two years of collaborative work with Adobe, Google switched the Flash Player plug-in bundled with Chrome for Windows from NPAPI to PPAPI. Google went even further and in 2010, the company started developing a new plug-in architecture called PPAPI (Pepper Plugin API) or simply Pepper, that forces plug-in code to run securely inside a sandbox and makes it less susceptible to crashes. Google, Mozilla and Opera responded to this threat by implementing click-to-play, an optional feature that prompts users for confirmation before executing plug-in based content. However, NPAPI's security shortcomings, like the fact that it spawns processes with privileged access to the underlying operating system, have in recent years led to a surge in attacks that exploit vulnerabilities in browser plug-ins to silently install malware on computers when users visit compromised or malicious websites. ![]()
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