Microsoft’s infamous Windows Genuine Advantage program is an attempt at combating piracy of Windows, and it is supposedly working quite well.

Microsoft has had a past of “embracing and extending” various technologies, but apparently here’s an instance of them just embracing: if you visit Microsoft’s download center with an alternate browser such as Mozilla Firefox. Instead of being told to switch to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, they offer a plugin that can perform the Windows Genuine Validation within Firefox and other Netscape-compatible browsers.

I’m impressed. Go Microsoft.