What is the sense of IE's blocking activex content on my C drive?

Question

I have just tested (in 5 minutes) in Firefox and Chrome webpages on my C drive for uploading to my website. I have spent the past hour trying to test the same pages in IE9. By default, IE blocks the pages because there is a few lines of javascript. If I click the b"allow active content" warning, IE either hangs or allows active x content for 5 minutes, then hangs again. If I check "allow active x to run on my computer" in the advanced settings, it doesn't load the page at all, or claims the page is not found, or - once - warned me that script was too long. I just removed every darn script in my homepage, and all I've got now is a blank screen. I tried Microsoft for a solution and they give me this: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms537628.aspx And it didn't make any difference. Other advice includes editing the registry, playing with the security settings etc. etc.

This has been happening with IE as far as I remember, although once you could just click "allow" on a popup and it'd run the page. What is the reasoning? How come it's safe in Firefox and Chrome and IE blocks everything, especially since it's on my own frigging C drive?

Answer 1

The underlying philosophy is as follows:

“ActiveX” is the technology these plug-ins use to run inside of IE. Like other add-ons, they are essentially Windows applications that run in the browser. Poorly written add-ons and ActiveX controls can therefore affect IE’s performance, reliability, security and privacy in similar ways.