> one fundamental difference is that on Windows every application puts > itself in the registry in a known location. As such it's easy for browsers > to see if an app is installed.
Unless you installed some sort of plugin, no way to query the registry from a webpage. If you installed a plugin, it could perform any suite of tests it wishes, to find out if something is installed. Registry scan, filesystem scan, some other scan, either way is just as effective. > On *nix systems (including Macs) it's not > as trivial to see this. I think that the closest that you have on *nix is > the mime.types file. Although technically possible to install apps to different locations, it's generally irrelevant, and generally not the case anyway. If you want to see if I have Skype on the mac, just look under /Applications and Desktop and $HOME, and if you feel like it, a few other locations, to see if "Skype.app" exists. It's a safe bet, if you scan a small number of locations, you'll get 99% accuracy in locating it. (Obviously I made up that number, but I believe in it.) Again, no browser plugin, no ability for a webpage to make such a query. And if you have a plugin, it could perform any test suite it wishes. _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lopsa.org http://lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators http://lopsa.org/
