Mozilla Expands Plugin Checker for Rival Browsers

Thursday, 09 February 2012 00:55

Mozilla, an open source organization whose Firefox Web browser operates in a highly competitive market, is extending a security service for plugin checking to users of rival browsers.

The Mozilla plugin checker is an online service that first debuted for Firefox users in October 2009. Firefox 3.6 also provides an integrated mechanism enabling users to check their plugin status.

The technology now also works for Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL) Safari 4, Opera 10.5 and Google's (NADSAQ: GOOG) Chrome 4, as well as Internet Explorer 7 and 8. The plugin checker provides users with a service that helps to identify whether the plugins on their systems are up-to-date.

Running out-of-date plugins often poses a security risk. Security researchers have noted in the past that out-of-date Flash plugins could potentially be leaving the Web at risk, for instance.