Skype Firefox Extension is causing many problems
I have experienced some erratic unexplainable behavior lately after I installed a couple of applications on a computer system running the Windows operating system. After some digging around in the depths of the system I discovered that the voice over IP software Skype, which was one of the applications installed on the PC, did install a Firefox extension automatically which was the cause of the issues that I experienced on the system.
The problem that I experienced on the system was that some images were not displayed at all but simply returned a The image [...] cannot be displayed, because it contains errors error instead which I did not link to Skype for a while as there was no direct correlation between the error and voice messaging. Another issue that I experienced was that the start page service Netvibes was constantly reloading its pages which made the service unusable during that time and made me almost switch to another service because I thought it had something to do with an update that Netvibes released recently.
After some brainstorming with users who noticed the issues as well we discovered that it was the Skype extension for Firefox that was to blame for the issues in the web browser. The extension can cause a permanent page reload, stop a page from loading correctly, cause image and pdf display issues and make Firefox unresponsive as a whole up to it causing freezes in the browser.
The only viable solution at the time of posting this is to uninstall the Skype Firefox extension, or at the very least, disable it. I did not even realize I had the extension installed in Firefox after someone mentioned that this could be the case. So, either uninstall the extension or disable it to recover the browser from the issues.
The only thing the extension adds to the browser anyway is that it marks phone numbers on pages so that Skype users can click on them directly to call the number using the Skype software.
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I also was getting very high cpu usage with Firefox and it was slowing my entire PC down. I eventually found the culprit. It was the Skype add-on extension.
Disabling it and then de-installing it cured the problem. I never really used the extension for calling numbers via the browser so it’s no problem.
This extension is the beginning of a nightmare! It took me weeks to figure out why my stumble upon toolbar wasn’t showing why my gmail notifier was showing only some times and some times it didn’t, firefox wouldn’t close properly and stayed open as background process. All this got fixed as soon as I disabled skype extension! dont install this!!
I’m a Skype user, but AFAIR it never offers me a toolbar. I wouldn’t accept it anyway, either. I think that, contrary to FF extensions, less toolbars is better for sure.
As ex-moderator of software subforum one of big forums, I remember, how often Google toolbar gave people problems, for example.
There is a fix btw! follow this link https://developer.skype.com/SkypeToolbars/ to get the beta extension for FF or IE.