Microsoft made available a plug-in that allows its Windows Media Player to integrate more smoothly with the Firefox Web browser, a growing rival to Microsoft’s own Internet Explorer browser. With competitors like Adobe vying for Web developer mindshare, Microsoft may have to give an inch to open source in order to keep WMP strong.

Available via Port 25 as well as the Firefox add-on site, the plug-in is designed to support Windows 32-bit and 64-bit platforms, including Windows XP SP2 and Windows Vista. It is also backwards compatible with the older 6.4 Windows Media Player.