Yesterday when writing about Microsoft Office I wanted to be sure I had all the latest updates, problem was Firefox wouldn’t work with the Windows Update site. Internet Explorer is just a click away, but what kind of a geek would I be if I went through all the trouble of opening up an entirely different browser just to access one site?
Lo and behold after only a few minutes of digging, I found a Firefox plug-in which allows you to update your Windows System with the Microsoft Update site through Firefox. Thanks to this add-on, I no longer have to open Internet Explorer just to check the Microsoft Updates site. Okay, well honestly all it is doing is loading up IE within a Firefox tab, but it still beats running two different browsers all together. Let’s jump right into it!
The add-on is called IE Tab, which can be downloaded from: addons.mozilla.org. Here’s some quick installation instructions.
How to access Internet Explorer sites such as Microsoft Update using Firefox
1. Open Firefox and in the address bar Type in https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1419 (or just click this link)
2. Once the webpage loads, Click the Add to Firefox (Windows) link to begin installation, when the Software Installation prompt appears Click Install Now.
3. Click Restart Firefox, Firefox will need to restart to complete the installation
All done! But there are still a few settings that you can adjust to fully customize this add-on to fit your needs.
For added convenience the plug-in features a site filter which will make any site on the list automatically open in an Internet Explorer tab; Pretty groovy! You can also manually use the right-click context menu to “Open Link in IE Tab” with any hyperlink you find within Firefox.
As you can see, this plug-in doesn’t grant you complete freedom from IE as you can actually see the IE window within the Firefox tab window via the additional unneeded scroll bars. It’s more like just having two browsers in one.
Hope this was helpful! Have a groovy time surfing the web, and now you’ll only need 1 browser for all of your favorite sites.
Tags: microsoft, windows-update, firefox, plugin, howto, ie
Thought you might like another alternative to IE/MS Windows Update. Check out :
http://windizupdate.com/
This is a Firefox friendly site that offers all the same updates, patches, and KB hot fixes as MS Updates, without the MS. The site does require you to install an installer (gooder engrish!), but does not require any validation or genuine authentication.