Re: VB and Active X
Tommy Malloy wrote:
> Someone I know who is learning programming sent me a link to a web page
> they were working on that had VB and Active X controls. I couldn't see
> any of it in netscape. Why not? Is it possible to see this stuff on a
> Linux box? Are LInux users going to be cut off from web based
> application written in MS languages?
>
> Tom
Tom, ActiveX pages will not work in Linux (as others have said). I'm adding my
comments to give you a little more background (since I in fact author such pages,
alas). With ActiveX actual executable objects (COM objects, which in this case are
basically windows DLLs with a well-defined interface) are automatically downloaded and
executed on your machine. This is an exceedingly scary thing because although there
are certain protection schemes I do not trust them: Java was a technology designed
from the ground up to be secure so people could safely use it on the web which ActiveX
uses an existing technology (COM) with *no* protection whatsoever and grafts on some
new machinery and calls itself secure. I'm not buying it.
As an aside, you can use ActiveX pages in WinXX with Netscape. You just have to get
the ActiveX plug-in.
--
Jens B. Jorgensen
jjorgens@bdsinc.com
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