Consider uninstalling QuiickTime for Windows

[Gare]

US-CERT advised today that Windows users should seriously consider uninstalling Apple QuickTime movie player.

Why? Because Apple announced that it's discontinuing security updates for QuickTime for Windows. Unsupported software leaves it open to hacks, and CERN estimates you're 2 to 3 times more likely to attract malware targeting QuickTime for Windows, than if you leave it installed.

How does this impact on your other software and how to play a *.MOV file? Well, I uninstalled QuickTime this morning, and immediately VLC player was appointed the duty of playing MOV QuickTime video files. After Effects (for Windows) complained that QuickTime was no longer installed, but evidently QT is not part of After Effects' core, 'cause it launched and I was able to use it perfectly.

Read the CERN statement and decide for yourself the risk/benefit.

My Best,

Gary

[gwpriester]

Did this this morning when I saw a post on Facebook.

[Gare]

Did this this morning when I saw a post on Facebook.

So I take it you endorse this move for our Windows members here on tg (and everywhere else)?

My Best,

Gary

P.S. Inmatrix Zoom Player can handle MOV files just as well as the VLC player, and it's more user friendly for novices...and sleek looking. There's the commercial version that I've been using as a replacement for Windows Media Player, and also a free home version, although it's almost 3 years old and available on c.net Free home version download


Go to the inmatrix store here.

[mwenz]

I think this is a knee jerk reaction. I do not believe that QT needs uninstalled from the computer itself. Do uninstalled the plug-in from all browsers. The exact same advice for the Flash browser plug-ins. The same nasties that are being delivered via QT via QT content on the web are being delivered via the Flash plug-in--and have been for years.

To be affected on your local machine for any application that uses QT, it takes download of the infected payloads and running them with your QT preferences not set to ask before running them. I feel if someone is dumb enough to do the above deserves what happens.

Y'all do know that YouTube and eBay are both used to deliver Flash nasties don't ya? Not to mention way too many mainstream news and newspaper websites.

It's a big, bad world out there.

[handrawn]

Some programs eg: certain versions of toonboom, will not run at all without QT installed; some programs may run but certain functions will be lost; in the main it's programs that have been ported over to windows requiring QT for internal video functions and such

do what mike says regarding plugins and settings - then make an informed decision - pedestrians get killed on roads; so if you don't need to cross the busy road don't, but if you do, cross it with your eyes open

[Gare]

Addendum, not that it makes a lot of difference in your decision, but it is an informational point:

QuickTime is not just a movie player. It's a rendering technology, that most of us only the player when you double-click a MOV file. As an example, Open GL is also a rendering technology, an API. Programs use to display certain types of graphics.

And as a rendering technology, and as Apple engineers write Windows versions of software, this is probably why, as handrawn points out, some programs won't run when they cannot find QT.

-g

[gwpriester]

Here's a link to Snopes.com, a fact checking website, that says the Department of Homeland Security is strongly advising Windows users to remove QuickTime. http://www.snopes.com/2016/04/16/gov...ete-quicktime/

[mwenz]

You checked Snopes? Did you think it was possibly a hoax?

For anyone taking this to tue point of uninstalling it altogether (verus just removing the plugins), do make sure whether you have applications that utilize QT and either opt to replace them or live without them. I have 4 such applications. They don't, however, have the ability to load infected movies, etc. They use QT for rendering. Big deal.

[Gare]

Funny: I stated this as a matter of fact/record, not the fodder for a debate whether to fold or hold!

Snopes has two interesting sentences in the article that David Mikkelson, founder of snopes.com in 1994 made:

1.) QuickTime for Windows will continue to work and is still available for download, but Apple and the DHS have urged Windows users to uninstall the program.

Interesting conundrum here: Apple will continue to distribute it, but won't support it. That's about as logical as an ashtray on a bicycle.

2.) Over the past several years, QuickTime has largely been supplanted by online media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and Netflix.

That's a demonstration of how ignorance becomes more palpable just because it's on snopes.com, or MSNBC, or wherever. Comparing QuickTime to Facebook is a lot like comparing Heinz ketchup to the supermarket where you bought it. If you're striving for technical accuracy, the web has largely moved to MPEG-4 as the lingua franca for playing and streaming video. And YouTube, Netflix, and the SyFy channel are distributors of video content, Dave, not media platforms.

I don't even know what a "media platform" is! Isn't that what Donald Trump stands on, a platform, when he campaigns and disseminates dis-information as the "media" part of this buzzphrase?



-g

[mwenz]

Yeah, the whole thing revolves around the no longer updating it. Apple is covering its bases as regards potential litigation. The DHS is doing a knee jerk reaction. Tell me, did the DHS issue a warning when Apple said it will not support Flash on its devices? Or that there have been a gazillion zero day threats to Flash? Or to Silver light? Or heck, even to ttf fonts?

I do think people should remove said plugins from their browsers. But...