Third-party applications are programs created by individuals or companies other than the operating system vendor. They can be standalone programs or plug-ins that add functionality to an existing program. Using third-party applications can reduce potential vulnerabilities, and open source software is growing in popularity.
Third-party applications are programs written to work within operating systems, but are written by individuals or companies other than the operating system vendor. For example, Microsoft® systems come with many software applications. Of these, any program created by Microsoft is a first-party application. Any program created by a different company or individual is a third-party application; the same goes for Apple and Linux systems. In this equation the second part is the user.
Third-party applications can be standalone programs or small plug-ins that add functionality to an existing parent program. The first category is infinite. On a typical system, standalone third-party applications include dozens to dozens of programs. Web browsers such as Opera, Safari® and Firefox®; and email clients such as Thunderbird®, The Bat! and Pegasus are some examples of popular independent third-party applications. Most antivirus programs, firewalls, multimedia programs, virtually any program not written by Microsoft®, Apple® or Linux, but built to run on those systems, fall into this category.
In some cases, computer users of Windows® operating systems find it safer to use standalone third-party applications for tasks such as e-mail, newsgroups, web browsing, and Internet Relay Chat (IRC). Microsoft® applications have traditionally been the target of the vast majority of hackers, viruses, Trojans and other security threats. Using a third-party application theoretically reduces the degree of potential vulnerability.
A different kind of third-party application provides additional functionality to a main program. These types of third party applications are referred to as plug-ins or add-ons. The existing parent program could itself be a third-party application or a first-party application. Examples include encryption plug-ins for email applications, multimedia plug-ins for web browsers for watching movies or viewing Flash content, or plug-ins that read certain file types, such as the Adobe® Acrobat® plug-in used for .pdf files.
While there are plug-ins and add-ons for proprietary applications, the vast majority are written for open source software. Microsoft® and Apple® do not make the source code of their proprietary operating systems publicly available, limiting the ability of others to write a plug-in or add-on. Most third-party applications are also proprietary, keeping the company’s source code secret.
However, there are many third-party applications that are open source and this category of software is growing. The Firefox® web browser and Thunderbird® email client are just two examples of popular open source third-party applications. Part of this is due to the ever-growing catalog of handy add-ons and plug-ins available for free for these programs. First-party open source applications are rare, with Linux operating systems being the exception.
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