Signed and Unsigned ActiveX Controls

Hey,

I was going through my security settings in IE today and was curious what the differance was between SIGNED and UNSIGNED ACTIVEX CONTROLS. Are signed ActiveX safer? I am reall tired of seeing prompt about ActiveX pop up when I open IE. I have them all disabled right now but still get a prompt that says something like "You have activeX disabled and certain sites might not open/work properly..blah blah. Well anyways thanks for your time.

Regards,
FireDancer

 

FireDancer--

See here. (It really does not tell you much but signed are probably safe and unsigned might be bad.)
http://www.techspot.com/tweaks/ie6/ie-2.shtml

You mean you get this message when you just open IE? Perhaps it is because your homepage uses ActiveX controls.
If your ActiveX security settings are at Prompt you may get messages. That would be no problem if you can click the message off and still see the page. (Many pages use ActiveX for ads or other non-essential items.) I have my "Run ActiveX controls and plugins" setting at Disable. Now I see no messages. But if I go to a site that requires ActiveX, I cannot view the page at all. So I can either change that setting or put the site into Trusted Sites. (Windows Update is a site that requires ActiveX controls to run.)
And as mentioned, I do not get the annoying messages with my Security setting for ActiveX at Disable. It is either I can see the page or not.
If you have accurately reported the error message you may have some other issue. I have never seen the word "Disabled" in a message about ActiveX.

 

Welshjim,

thanks for the reply and to be honest I mis spoke I was in a hurry. The prompt I get is this "Your current settings prohibit running ActiveX controls on this page. As a result, the page may not display properly.

FireDancer

 

That message will appear if an Unsigned was attempted to be installed, and you have it disabled. Or, you have installed the IEspyads.reg file into your registry, and one of those sites was a third party, and all ActiveX was denied to it.
In any case, it really is nothing to worry about, as Activex has nothing to do with what you see on the page. Just click Ok and forget it.
About Signed, this only verifies that the program to be installed has not been changed since it was submitted for a certificate. This does not guarantee it is adware/spyware free.

 

FireDancer--With all respect to markp62, I think you are getting that message because you have set at least one of the ActiveX settings to Prompt, most likely "Run ActiveX controls and plugins ". (That is what Prompt is all about. You get messages asking your permission.) You get no messages if you have set an ActiveX setting at Disable or Enable.
Nor does it have anything to do with IESpyAds. That program adds sites to the Restricted Sites list, which by Default puts the ActiveX settings, when you access such a site, at Disable. As mentioned, Disable does not give rise to messages--ActiveX just does not run on the page. In a few cases, because of that, the page will not be viewable or other functions will not be useable--like at Windows Update.
Restricted Sites also do not differentiate between first party and third party sites. If a site is in Restricted Sites, then the Security level for that site is whatever is set for Restricted Sites. The Privacy tab is where first party and third party sites are handled differently as far as their ability to set cookies--not run ActiveX.
P.S. Put the ActiveX setting for "Run ActiveX controls and plugins" at Disable, and see if you still get the message when you open IE which I am assuming opens your homepage. (If, of course, the home page won't run, you will have to switch back, or if you trust that page, put it into your Trusted Sites. Uncheck the box dealing with servers and https.)

 

FireDancer and markp62--

Well, I must confess to "lack of experience ". I have been surfing for years and feel I have not seen that message. When I had the IE Tools|Internet Options|Security tab setting for "Run ActiveX controls and plugins" at Prompt, I used to see messages all the time asking if I wanted to run ActiveX but by clicking "No ", I usually always saw a perfectly fine page. But that message was so common that I got tired of seeing it, so I changed the setting to Disable and except for a few sites, which ones I learned with time, saw the page just fine without messages. If not running ActiveX seemed to really be an issue, I just could not see the page--no messages.
Now, today I entered two sites and got the message you quote. At one site, just saying OK let me see the site just fine. At the other, I could not see the page.
Where have I been for all these years? I guess not at those sites. Oh well.
I still think it least annoying to have the setting at Disable.

 

I see that message a lot, checking out HJT logs in Security. This usually happens when I check out the site where the DPF (ActiveX) entries come from. If I see that message, it confirms to me that an unsigned, behind the scenes install was about to occur.