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Apple to end support for QuickTime for Windows as two new vulnerabilities are discovered

QuickTime_2

The United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team has today issued a new note in which it revealed that Apple has no further plans to provide security updates for QuickTime for Windows. The note follows an earlier report from Trend Micro and comes as two new vulnerabilities have been discovered that could affect QuickTime for Windows users.

The two new vulnerabilities are heap-corruption-based remote code execution vulnerabilities, which essentially means that an attacker could gain access to a user’s computer by tricking them in to downloading a file from the web. While there’s nothing currently taking advantage of this hole, now that it is out in the open, it shouldn’t be too much longer.

While Apple itself has been relatively quiet regarding its plans for QuickTime for Windows, the company reportedly told Trend Micro recently that “the product would be deprecated on Windows and the vendor would publish removal instructions for users.” Apple has yet to officially confirm this on their website, however.

With two new security vulnerabilities having been discovered and Apple having no plans to issue any more updates, the U.S. government says the best way for users to protect themselves is to uninstall QuickTime from their machines:

Computers running QuickTime for Windows will continue to work after support ends. However, using unsupported software may increase the risks from viruses and other security threats. Potential negative consequences include loss of confidentiality, integrity, or availability of data, as well as damage to system resources or business assets. The only mitigation available is to uninstall QuickTime for Windows. Users can find instructions for uninstalling QuickTime for Windows on the Apple Uninstall QuickTime page.

Apple’s web plugin for QuickTime on Windows became disabled by default earlier this year and the company has never really updated the app to support Windows 8 and Windows 10, so today’s revelation is not an incredibly surprising one. For those wondering, iTunes and QuickTime were separated out a couple of years ago and iTunes no longer requires it to run properly.

Image via BestWinSoft

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Comments

  1. coinaphrase - 8 years ago

    Um, doesn’t this pose “issues” for continuing to run iTunes on Windows? Or will iTunes include the necessary code without relying on an external component? What does this mean for other apps on Windows that rely on QT components for file support?
    Very disturbing that Apple would undermine their users this way.

    • Chance Miller - 8 years ago

      Good question, iTunes and QuickTime were separated out a couple of years ago and iTunes no longer requires it to run properly. Just updated the post.

      • srgmac - 8 years ago

        I guess this makes logical sense then; no reason for them to continue updating QuickTime when Windows users are most likely going to be using iTunes anyway. I guess if you really needed an app to do video playback of specific containers / codecs, VLC is probably your best bet anyway.

      • Robert Wilson - 8 years ago

        Strang I have iTunes running on a headless system providing home sharing for my Apple TV. Without QuickTime the Apple TV can play the music from it but not the videos. I had to install QuickTime for the Apple TV to play my movies and stuff from its home share. So it appeared to me it still needed.

  2. viciosodiego - 8 years ago

    Quicktime for os X hasn’t been updated for a long time now.

    • taoprophet420 - 8 years ago

      I would imagine QuickTime will be retired from OS X soon. Apple might have Music and Video app for OS X like they have for iOS and retire iTunes also.

      • Noah Leon (@moosefuel) - 8 years ago

        To be clear, you’re talking about the QuickTime player, right? Quicktime as a framework is probably not going anywhere (support in the OS for video).

      • taoprophet420 - 8 years ago

        Yes.

  3. Noah Leon (@moosefuel) - 8 years ago

    I guess I see why they are doing this, but as a video editing professional, I’m sad to see it disappear on Windows, as a lot of pro apps (Adobe Premiere, etc.) depend on it to work with Apple’s ProRes. Obviously they will come up with their own implementations, but it’s the end of an era–the era when Apple felt compelled to make Windows software in order to keep its Quicktime technology in the mainstream. I wish they could simply open-source it, but I guess it’s much too proprietary for that.

  4. Jake Becker - 8 years ago

    Honestly, I hate Quicktime on every OS, but it was always extra atrocious on Windows.

  5. pdixon1986 - 8 years ago

    i havent used quicktime in a very long time… it doesnt work with most file formats and has very poor controls… i just use VLC

  6. Toro Volt (@torovolt) - 8 years ago

    So Apple can not afford to maintain and update Quicktime, yet they have plenty resources to develop a Car?!
    Oh boy, they are losing it.

  7. John Smith - 8 years ago

    Problem for the sort of people who read this blog?

    Probably not – they’ll already be on any windows computer they might have, disabling quick time.

    But it does need Apple (or Microsoft) to do something for those ordinary people who might not even know they installed quicktime – alongside iTunes – let alone what quicktime is or that they need to get rid of it. Windows PCs, iTunes etc are mass market products and the manufacturers can’t just leave the non tech savvy at the mercy of the hackers. Hackers must be rubbing their hands in glee at the moment.

    Apple need to make sure their customers are not put at risk by a product Apple supplied. Next iTunes update includes a tool that disables quicktime ?

  8. Robert Lee King - 8 years ago

    Guys, they aren’t dropping support for Quicktime. They are dropping support for Quicktime Web Plug-ins. It would be nice if these so-called
    articles would get the facts right. Web plug-ins have been being phased out for several years now. Quicktime is only the latest to be added
    to that list.

  9. dpcom - 8 years ago

    When you really think about it, QT on Windows doesn’t make a lot of sense in 2016 anyway. It made a huge amount of sense before modern video standards dominated; Windows and Mac users each had their own proprietary worlds of media formats. But today you can just make a standard h.264 file and let the Windows users play it with their own native player, and Mac users use theirs. Apple won’t be able to compete in terms of user experience with something completely native in Windows without investing heavily in Windows development, and what’s to be gained even if they did?

    Also, QuickTime’s other original intended purpose as a media showcase (Apple Trailers, for example) was replaced by iTunes a decade ago as well.

Author

Avatar for Chance Miller Chance Miller

Chance is an editor for the entire 9to5 network and covers the latest Apple news for 9to5Mac.

Tips, questions, typos to chance@9to5mac.com