Apple eases QuickTime plug-in pain

Change those EMBED tags, folks

Apple is providing an ActiveX plug-in that will allow users on Windows to view QuickTime media in Internet Explorer 6 after all.

Microsoft's decision to drop support for the Netscape browser plug-in API in version 6 of its browser has had the effect of breaking existing QuickTime configurations on Windows PCs. The change also affects users running IE 5.5 Service Pack 2.

The new ActiveX control should fix this, says Apple, which also recommends that web authors should check for the presence of the ActiveX control. Apple's new recommendations can be found here.

The saga continues a rich history of spats between Microsoft and Apple over QuickTime. Apple alleged that Microsoft set out to "knife the baby" by introducing compatibility issues between QuickTime and Windows. The issues were eventually traced back to bugs in Apple's code. ®

Related Link

Apple's technical bulletin on QuickTime and IE

Related Stories

'We're talking about knifing the baby' -- MS exec
Microsoft sabotaged QuickTime, says Apple exec
Linux is the future, say former MS execs