Why is ActiveX dangerous?
This is where I can still get into legal trouble. Let me preface this again with “All that is said on this site is simply my opinion”. So, in my opinion, ActiveX is a danger. It’s dangerous because of the basic nature of ActiveX, not because of a simple bug here and there. ActiveX is the same thing as OLE. Microsoft has repeatedly stated that ActiveX is OLE renamed. ActiveX/OLE is simply a Microsoft Windows software component. What does that mean? Well, it means an ActiveX control is essentially a Windows program that can be distributed from a web page. These controls can do literally anything a Windows program can do. That means you could write an ActiveX control to erase a hard drive. A control containing a virus or trojan can be written, distributed, and activated from a web page, and the viewer of the control might never know. A control could even scan your drive for tax records or documents the control’s author was interested in, and e-mail them off to some other person. All this
