When surfing the internet it is important to have a safe and updated browser. Not so much because you always have to keep up with IT developments, often irrelevant, but because most software updates of any program that communicate with the outside world are related to its security.
Since the browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Google Chrome, Opera to name the best) is the main gateway to the internet, it must be kept as safe as possible .
Beyond the updates of these programs, it becomes absolutely important and decisive to update the plugins that it uses, that is, the external software components that integrate into the browser.
To understand what I'm talking about, just think of the Flash Player, the plugin that allows everyone to see streaming animations and videos on the web.
Although it is often not noticed, these external components are many, some are important, others are used few times; the important thing is to keep them updated and today is the right day to check them on the fly and know if everything is safe or if you need to install the new version of the used components.
Mozilla developers have created a web page called Mozilla Plugin Check which was previously used to check if the numerous Firefox extensions and plugins were updated and which, for a few days, has been working as a controller also for other web browsers (IE, Chrome, Opera, Safari).
This page is completely automatic and immediately checks and informs users if the version of each plugin of their web browser is the latest available and is therefore safe.
The control analyzes the plugins installed on the computer for the web browser used and compares them with the most recent version offered by those who develop and distribute it.
The most popular plugins used by browsers that are generally installed on all computers are:
- Adobe Flash Player: used to view videos and animations
- Shockwave Flash is sometimes used for online games
- Silverlight Plug-In is similar to Flash but it is from Microsoft
- Windows Media Player Plug-in Dynamic Link Library is used to open a WMP player on the browser
- VLC is used to open the VLC player on a website
- Real Player allows you to watch videos streamed.
- Java is used by many web applications
- DivX Web Player allows you to watch movies in high quality streaming
- Adobe Acrobat to open pdfs on the browser
- QuickTime Plug-in is the Apple player used by many sites
- Microsoft Office to open Word, Excel, Powerpoint documents on the browser
- Google Earth Plugin to view 3D Earth
- Unity Player used by some browser games
The Mozilla Plugin Check checks if one of these components is updated and is fine (green color), if it is vulnerable from a security point of view and must be replaced (red color), if a new update exists but it is not important (orange color)
The control does not support all plugins, for some it manages to give the direct link to the site where you can download the new version while for others there is a gray button that activates Google search.
In the latter case, the check must be done manually, comparing the version detected with the one seen on the official website of the developer of the plugin.
The same thing can be done on the Browser Check website which checks if the plugins are up to date and safe and highlights those that have dangerous vulnerabilities and require an update instead.
Since this operation is a one-minute thing, both for Windows, Mac and Linux PCs, and it is important to surf the web safely, I recommend everyone to do it immediately and, if necessary, update the plugins .
