The terminology used by the Mozilla team is sometimes a little bit confusing. Could you for instance define the differences between add-ons, extensions and plugins ? The first two and the latter are different which is easy to explain. Plugins are installed by third-party applications while add-ons and extensions are installed by the user himself.
The big question that I asked myself was if I really needed all those plugins. Before I could answer that question I had to find out which were installed. The command about:plugins in the address bar reveals all plugins currently loaded in Firefox. I discovered several plugins that I was not using for sure and some that I did not want to mess with.
An Adobe Reader plugin was still installed although I did uninstall the program a while ago. I discovered a Microsoft Office 2007 plugin, a Real Player plugin, AOL Media Playback plugin, Windows Presentation Foundation plugin and several more that I was pretty sure about that I did not need them.
The location of those plugins was mentioned in that menu as well which made it easy to track them down. I decided to move all plugins that I thought that I did not need anymore to a temporary location. This ensured that I would be able to move them back if I would discover that an application or website would need those plugins.
You should refresh the settings once you moved those plugins because sometimes other applications tend to take the place of those that you have removed.
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would be nice it this was in plain english for us computer leliters
want to remove plug ins as it disturbing to open some websites
Leesen veree keerfelee: ai vill saay zis ownlee vance :-)
Only 1/2 done. “You should refresh the settings” How?
It would be nice if there was a real answer here, what BS…
For those of us finding a variety of mysterious plugins and add-ons in Firefox that we would like to remove permanently the article promises much but delivers little. To begin with the article is incorrect about its distinction that only users can install add-ons; Firefox allows some applications–eg ZoneAlarm–to install their own add-ons.
And “about: plugins” annoyingly only lists enabled plugs, so that if you have disabled a plugin and now want to remove it, you have to enable it again to see all associated files.
But add-ons are more annoying. I have add-ons that should not even be there and I’d like to permanently remove them. Of course, these do not have the “remove” button that Firefox directs you to click.
These are the sorts of questions that need answering in an article like this and it doesn’t.