Trying to make sense of firefox plugins

Tue Jul 3 16:20:05 UTC 2007

----- Original Message ----
From: Timothy Murphy <tim at birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie>
To: fedora-list at redhat.com
Sent: Tuesday, July 3, 2007 7:53:55 AM
Subject: Trying to make sense of firefox plugins

I have been having a problem with firefox (on a ThinkPad T23).
Basically, it exits as soon as certain sites are accessed.
I downloaded the sources at one of these sites (with wget)
and the same behaviour occurred when looking at the file.

I think the problem lies in javascript;
when I turned it off (in Firefox Preferences)
the problem stopped in most (but not all) cases.

I tried removing and re-installing firefox and js (with yum)
but this didn't do any good.

It seems to me the problem probably lies in a firefox plugin.
So I was looking at these, and found the whole setup pretty confusing.

I wonder if there is any document that explains firefox setup clearly?
I really hate these directories with names like "9eaqek76.Default User".
Why these idiotic names?

Is there any simple way of seeing what plugins are in use?
And if one deletes a plugin, how can it be replaced?

-- 
Timothy Murphy  
e-mail (<80k only): tim /at/ birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland

----- Original Message ----

Is there any simple way of seeing what plugins are in use?

In the address bar 
type about:plugins
which will return which plugins are in active use

You will also have to keep in mind your own user profile(s)

for instance in my own user directory (home) I have 
[olivares at localhost ~]$ cd .mozilla/plugins/
[olivares at localhost plugins]$ ls -l
total 9556
-rwxr-xr-x 1 olivares olivares 7040080 2007-06-11 18:10 libflashplayer.so
lrwxrwxrwx 1 olivares olivares      53 2007-06-12 08:44 libjavaplugin_oji.so -> /opt/jre1.6.0_01/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so
-rwxr-xr-x 1 olivares olivares  524908 2007-06-12 08:35 mplayerplug-in-dvx.so
-rwxr-xr-x 1 olivares olivares    1021 2007-06-12 08:35 mplayerplug-in-dvx.xpt
-rwxr-xr-x 1 olivares olivares  524912 2007-06-12 08:35 mplayerplug-in-qt.so
-rwxr-xr-x 1 olivares olivares    1021 2007-06-12 08:35 mplayerplug-in-qt.xpt
-rwxr-xr-x 1 olivares olivares  524920 2007-06-12 08:35 mplayerplug-in-rm.so
-rwxr-xr-x 1 olivares olivares    1021 2007-06-12 08:35 mplayerplug-in-rm.xpt
-rwxr-xr-x 1 olivares olivares  525876 2007-06-12 08:35 mplayerplug-in.so
-rwxr-xr-x 1 olivares olivares  524912 2007-06-12 08:35 mplayerplug-in-wmp.so
-rwxr-xr-x 1 olivares olivares    1021 2007-06-12 08:35 mplayerplug-in-wmp.xpt
-rwxr-xr-x 1 olivares olivares    1021 2007-06-12 08:35 mplayerplug-in.xpt
[olivares at localhost plugins]$ cd ~

and in the universal directory there is 

[olivares at localhost ~]$ ls -l /usr/lib/firefox-2.0.0.4/plugins/
total 40
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 18496 2007-06-03 15:02 libnullplugin.so
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 10752 2007-06-03 15:02 libunixprintplugin.so

Also in Tools Option there is a subcategory called Add-ons where you can find themes/extensions like Fake Agent (User agent Switcher), Stuff for ads like Adblocker etc.

> I really hate these directories with names like "9eaqek76.Default User".
> Why these idiotic names?
I am with you on this one.  Which one is more weird yours or mine
gfi0egg9.default 

I had a problem with a plugin and firefox refused to load up.   to fix the problem I removed the .mozilla/firefox/ directory and its contents and cut and pasted from the ones as root user.  I then changed owner to my own account.   I disabled all plugins and thankfully it worked again.

[olivares at localhost .mozilla]$ ls
firefox  mplayerplug-in.conf  mplayerplug-in.types  plugins
[olivares at localhost .mozilla]$ cd firefox/
[olivares at localhost firefox]$ ls
gfi0egg9.default  pluginreg.dat  profiles.ini
[olivares at localhost firefox]$ ls -l
total 28
drwx------ 6 olivares olivares 4096 2007-07-03 11:17 gfi0egg9.default
-rw------- 1 olivares olivares 6172 2007-07-03 11:05 pluginreg.dat
-rw-rw-r-- 1 olivares olivares   94 2007-06-04 00:19 profiles.ini
[olivares at localhost firefox]$ cd ..
[olivares at localhost .mozilla]$

There is a page for common plugins
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browse/type:7

Regards,

Antonio 

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