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It’s time to ditch QuickTime: Apple stops support for buggy platform on Windows
If you still have Apple QuickTime still installed on your Windows PC, it’s time to uninstall it now. Apple, Inc. is reportedly ending support for the movie player and on the heels of this news two new vulnerabilities have been discovered in the platform that put PC users at risk.
According to security company Trend Micro, Inc. Apple will no longer be submitting security updates for QuickTime for Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system.
At the same time, the Department of Homeland Security’s United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team, or US-CERT, released an alert on Thursday warning users that two new vulnerabilities discovered in the product (that will now go unpatched) that put PC users at risk. The two advisories were released by the Zero Day Initiative as ZDI-16-241 and ZDI-16-242.
These vulnerabilities do not affect QuickTime for Mac users.
Both vulnerabilities discovered allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code on installations of Apple QuickTime. Both exploits had been reported to Apple in March 2016 and Apple responded by acknowledging the bugs and noting that they will not be fixed.
As a result of these exploits being discovered, and knowledge that they will not be fixed, users are urged to remove Apple QuickTime from their Windows PCs. Apple provides uninstallation instructions on its website.
“[U]sing unsupported software may increase the risks from viruses and other security threats,” warns US-CERT in the advisories. “Potential negative consequences include loss of confidentiality, integrity, or availability of data, as well as damage to system resources or business assets.”
To hammer the point home, the advisory added: “The only mitigation available is to uninstall QuickTime for Windows.”
Released in 1991, Apple QuickTime was one of the first video players that enabled the “multimedia experience” at the time. However, 20 years later the software is beginning to show its age and has been edged out by superior web-enabled technologies such as HTML5. Installation counts of the software are hard to come by, but over 55 percent of all internet-enabled PCs had it installed in 2012.
For Windows PCs, there are many better video players for a multitude of multimedia files (aside from Windows Media Player) such as VideoLAN’s VLC Media Player. With the end of life announcement from Apple, it is time to let QuickTime for Windows die.
Image credit: Kyt Dotson, Apple QuickTime Logo and TV color bar test mashup.
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