PDF blocker causes web sites to crash
I am using Adobe Acrobat reader 7.x and cannot update for technical reasons (I have too much other software which supports this version. Newer versions are not supported.) If I try to open a pdf, I get the famous "This plugin is vulnerable and should be updated" screen. While in and of itself this is not fatal for most websites (although it's a REAL nuisance), there are some which will not work. This includes http://www.sunpass.com/ (State of Florida - sunpass) and http://www.t-mobile.com/MyTMobile/ (T-Mobile billing). The former reports a bad pdf (PDF does not being with %pdf-), the latter simply hangs. Both websites require login, so further details would not help. Both work on Internet Explorer. I am using Firefox 17.0.1 on Windows XP SP3.
Either: (a) Is there a way to enable the older Acrobat plugin without the warning messages (possibly using About: parameters?) (b) Alternatively, could you tell me the last version of Firefox which worked and I will regress to that version and block future updates.
Thanks for the help.
Alle antwoorden (5)
You first should at least try updating to the newer Version of Reader, your software may actually work with it and the security improvements will be worth trying at least.
If not, you can disable the click to play blocklisting for websites you trust. How to always activate a plugin for a trusted website
I want to disable the block for ALL websites!!!!
Fully disabling the block isn't wise. You can disable it for websites you trust (such as T-mobile) but MANY viruses are spread using drive by PDF's. Having the block in pace for other websites is going to prevent these drive bys, at least until you decide you want to allow the PDF.
I know what I'm doing. I'll take the chance.
(BTW, not to sound like a complete a***hole, but it's Professor Dr Philip Brown, former board member of the LI chapter of the ACM, author of texts on compiler design, now retired. As my marketing people used to put it, an acknowledged authority in the field of computer science. I don't need big brother telling me my plug-ins are out of date. Not that this is any criteria, but IE doesn't do this, and I don't believe chrome does it either; although I haven't tried Chrome with old plugins. I like/appreciate the effort put in by all the hard-working volunteers at Mozilla. I would like to keep using Firefox; but this is making it difficult for me to do so. I've browsed the web and I'm not the only one with this problem. Worse are people who have Java scripts for older versions of Java and now can't get them to run because the plug-in they use is out of date and Firefox keeps blocking it. This "feature" may not have been the best idea. But I'm not going to quibble about that. I just need a way to disable it or a version number of firefox before this all got added. Thanks for your replies.)
First, IE doesn't do this because it's a feature of Firefox, not a feature of IE. Having out of data plugins is one of the biggest causes of security problems on the web, so we are trying to mitigate the risk for those users who have not updated to modern software on their computers (and this was designed and developed by employees of Mozilla and volunteers). If you wish to change browsers, feel free to do so. You can do one of these things:
- Update Adobe Reader to either 10.1.4 or 11.0. This is the safest and most secure thing to do, not only giving you better PDF reading experiencing, but keeping you more secure.
- Remove PDF reader and use something like foxit reader for PDF's.
- Disable the block for websites you trust, and leave it enabled for other untrusted websites.
- use another browser, which does leave you open to infections still.
It's up to you what you want to do.
As for the java, Javascript and Java are totally different so those problems are unrelated