Friday, November 09, 2007 6:54 AM
sandi
EOLAS: important changes soon
Well well well, isn't this interesting.
Microsoft have licensed the technologies that are covered by the infamous Eolas patent, and will be removing the “click to activate” requirement in Internet Explorer.
Regular readers of this blog will remember that a recent US High Court decision cast doubt on whether the original award to EOLAS of $521 would stand. The potential was there for the award to be reduced to $187 million.
The change that has now been announced by the IE team will require no modifications to existing webpages, and no new actions for developers creating new pages. IE will revert to its original behaviour.
There will be a "preview release" incorporating the changes called the "Internet Explorer Automatic Component Activation Preview", which will be available in December 2007 via the Microsoft Download Center. The change will also be made part of the next pre-release versions of Windows Vista SP1 and Windows XP SP3. It is anticipated that the change will be released to the general public as part of IE's April 2008 Cumulative Update.
Announcement: http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2007/11/08/ie-automatic-component-activation-changes-to-ie-activex-update.aspx
Filed under: Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer, Technology