Additional plugins are required...
Upgrading to Firefox 1.0.5 last week reminded me of a minor annoyance with this browser. When visiting a web page relying on plugins to render its content, a warning message will be displayed at the top of the page unless those plugins are installed:
Showing some kind of warning about missing plugins is essential for inexperienced users, and I suppose this one is a lot less obnoxious than it could have been. Compared to Internet Explorer's infamous "Your current security settings prohibit running ActiveX" message box, this is nothing. Still, there are plugins I don't want to install and I'd like to tell Firefox to stop nagging me about them.
There's no such manual override as far as I know, but you can disable the warning entirely. Open about:config and set the plugin.default_plugin_disabled option to false. The logic is a bit twisted here: the default plugin is disabled by default. Setting this option to false enables the plugin, which gets rid of the warning message because the default plugin will accept any content and render nothing.
Of course, now you'll need to keep track of installed plugins more actively. There's a handy list of installed plugins available by entering about:plugins in the location bar. After enabling the default plugin and restarting Firefox, you should see the status of "Mozilla Default Plug-in" (npnul32.dll or libnull.so) change accordingly in this list. You may also find that enabling the plugin.expose_full_path option is helpful when using this list for troubleshooting purposes.
19 July, 2005
A quotation mark mystery explained
Feedback
by Ishmaeel
Crap. I am rid of the information bar, now I am nagged by a DIALOG BOX! Apparently there is no way _not_ to install the flash plugin ;-) Well, thanks again, anyway.
by Johan
Disabling popups from plugins should be enough to also get rid of the dialog. Enter about:config in the location bar, add (right-click and select New) the Integer setting privacy.popups.disable_from_plugins, then set the value to 2. Possible values for this setting are:
| privacy.popups.disable_from_plugins | |
|---|---|
| 0 | Allow popups from plugins |
| 1 | Limit popups to dom.popup_maximum |
| 2 | Block popups from plugins |
| 3 | Block popups from all plugins (even on whitelisted sites) |
by Johan
I should perhaps mention the FlashBlock extension, which is great for occasional use of Flash. It allows you to have the plugin installed but run only the content you are interested in.
by BeOS MrX
Hey great! Now I can permanently disable this annoying feature. Great for when in BeOS, when all those plugins don't work anyhow. Look out for the program 'QuickFox' available www.bebits.com when I get it se up ! Hopefully next month.
by Janne
Great advice!
When talking about annoying stuff...Do you know a way to permanently remove the "My Documents folder" in WinXP?
by Johan
Making My Documents behave is difficult because you are fighting a multitude of different applications running with user privileges. You can disable and remove My Documents permanently but doing so will cause even more annoying problems with applications insisting on having it available.
What I do instead is to leave the default My Documents alone. I store my documents in directories where I don't have to fight with applications for control and remove as many UI references to My Documents as I can (e.g. removing the shortcuts to it from the desktop, places bar, and start menu).
by Michael
Thanks for the info regarding one of the few obnoxious "features" of Firefox. I've finally uninstalled Macromedia flash, because the only thing it seems to be used for anymore are floater and slider ads. Now Firefox doesn't even nag me about reinstalling the stupid thing anymore. Thanks guys!
by Web User
When referencing Flash, be sure to use its full name, "The Flash Virus". Thanks.
by Nikolay Kichukov
Cheers, I also needed to get rid of that announcement about missing plugins. Now I did thaks to you guys.
Regards,
-Nikolay Kichukov
by Mariano
Thanks for the tip, I am not very fond of "The Flash Virus" but that annoying message almost made me install Macromedia's vermin it to get rid of the warning.
Feedback is closed for this entry.
by Ishmaeel
Oh, thank you! I searched all over the net about how to disable this annoying nag. Apparently nobody else is annoyed by this - or everybody else religiously installs the flash plugin - or I am losing my googling skills.