The ’90s were a different time, which also brought us dangerous macros in Office documents. RELATED: What ActiveX Controls Are and Why They're Dangerous Security Was a Problem from the Start Popular Internet Explorer plug-ins like Adobe Flash, Adobe Shockwave, RealPlayer, Apple QuickTime, and Windows Media Player were implemented using ActiveX controls. Starting with Internet Explorer 3.0 in 1996, Microsoft let web developers embed ActiveX controls in their web pages.īack then, when you visited a web page, Internet Explorer would prompt you to download and run any ActiveX controls that the web page specified. However, here, we’re focusing on ActiveX for the web. Microsoft used them for a variety of purposes-for example, you could embed ActiveX controls in Microsoft Office documents.
ActiveX controls are a type of program that can be embedded in other applications.
