Saturday, July 01, 2006

Update Windows From Firefox And Opera

Many people that use Firefox or Opera, open Internet Explorer just to go to Windows Update to patch the security holes of their operating system (and, of course, create other security problems). In the last months, Windows Update site is very hard to use, it requires to have some Windows services like Automatic Updates and BITS set to automatic, it forces you to install a piece of spyware called Windows Genunine Advantage that will deactivate your OS if it thinks your copy isn't licensed (not yet, but Microsoft intends to do so).

But there's another way: WindizUpdate is a site that allows you to install Windows updates using Firefox and Opera. It installs a plug-in that detects what updates you need to install, downloads the setup for each update and installs them. It may not be official, but:

* updates are downloaded from Microsoft's site
* it doesn't collect personal identifiable information
* it doesn't require Windows Genunine Advantage and it doesn't install it
* you don't have to use Internet Explorer, neither the ActiveX for Windows Update
* you don't get dialogs that prompt you to restart the computer

If you still don't trust the site, you can find a forum where you can post questions or read other people's problems, without creating an account.

There are other ways to install the updates for Windows, but this is a great alternative to Microsoft's Windows Update.
Update Windows From Firefox And Opera by Alex Chitu
  7 comments ( Post a comment )
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Anonymous Anonymous said on July 1, 2006 10:32 AM PDT:
WGA doesn't deactivate your OS.

Always nice to find a blogging lie as part of a smear campaign to Microsoft.
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Blogger Ionut Alex. Chitu said on July 1, 2006 10:34 AM PDT:
No, but it will. You haven't read this article. It wouldn't be the first time when Microsoft does this: think Windows XP SP1.
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Anonymous Anonymous said on July 1, 2006 3:12 PM PDT:
Actually I had read that article. MS won't do it - to many genuine users, pirate versions, would suffer.
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Blogger Philip said on July 1, 2006 9:37 PM PDT:
well, if you're not paranoid about microsoft, another easy way to use the windows update webpage is to get the ie tab extension for firefox and set it to autmatically go to ie tab when going to windows update webpage. It's a good extenion to have since some websites still require internet explorer.
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Blogger Dimitris said on July 2, 2006 8:46 AM PDT:
I tried it and it works!

Thank you!
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Anonymous Anonymous said on January 7, 2008 8:14 AM PDT:
windiz was a great idea but it's no longer being updated. We'll have to look elsewhere sadly.
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Anonymous Anonymous said on March 13, 2009 5:04 AM PDT:
This site is still down. Why you don´t remove this? -.-
What do you think?
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