Reading OS from browser?

[Amit Agrawal]

Hi,

I was just wondering how is it possible to know system information by a browser?

let me explain, whoever has used Windows as OS might would have used microsoft windows patch updation thing. when we click on the button asking for checking for critical updates...It figures out what all updates our system needs..right?

I want to understand how is it done? how does it reads out my system information? Is some functionality built in IE or it works fine with other non-microsoft browsers...anybody tried it with other browsers? or it can be done with javascript..!!

[Eric Pascarello]

IE is using ActiveX to do that and not JavaScript. ActiveX is a big security risk since it is able to manipulate files on the computer. JavaScript can not do that.

Eric

[Amit Agrawal]

thanks. Does these ActiveX work on all browsers? or atleast on all popular browsers?

Actually so used to with applets that its really hard to understand that it can read out my system with out any settings or explicit permission to do so !!

[Jeroen Wenting]

ActiveX works on all popular browsers, meaning all versions of IE since 4.0 (which together have some 95% of the browsermarket between them).

All work to determine what updates to get is done on your own computer, no data is sent to the server except a list of the actual updates to retrieve.

ActiveX is no more a security risk than is any other client-side technology that can execute both local code and communicate over a network.

[Eric Pascarello]

ActiveX works on only IE

I think Mozzila is coming out with their own version, but they are working on security restraints for it.

Eric