From the ‘Simple Ideas That Will Change The World‘ files:
The risks associated with running outdated and insecure plugins are not trivial. Simply put, if a user is running an old version of a plugin for which an exploit is available, they’re at risk — even if they’ve got an updated browser, operating system and (for Windows users) anti-virus software.
Now Mozilla has a solution to the problem that I personally think is so simple, yet effective, it will change the web security landscape for tens of millions of Firefox users.
Mozilla has already provided users with a check in Firefox 3.5.x for Adobe’s Flash plugin, but they’ve recognized it’s not enough and have expanded the effort.
With its new Plugin Check site, Mozilla will check 15 popular plugins on a users Firefox browser to ensure they are up-to-date. Yeaah it sounds simple, but in my own little test case today I found out how amazingly effective it is.
On a test Windows XP SP3 box that is in my environment, I ran the plugin
check and much to my surprise, found that a number of plugins were out
of date.