Microsoft drops IE's 'click to activate' nag
Microsoft will strip a "click to activate" warning from Internet Explorer 7 starting next month, a company product manager said Thursday, a side benefit of the settlement that Microsoft struck with Eolas Technologies in August.
Next month, Microsoft will preview the modified Internet Explorer (IE) that eliminates the warning that's been popping up on screens when users select multimedia content, such as clicking on a link to a Flash file or a PDF document. That notice first appeared in IE in April 2006, when Microsoft began requiring users to approve ActiveX controls the first time they were run from the browser.
The settlement with Eolas -- it followed a US$521 million judgment in 2003 against Microsoft in a patent infringement dispute between the two companies -- paved the way for Microsoft to license Eolas' technologies, which in turn meant that IE could ditch "click to activate."
