New Plugin Installer

When Mozilla or Mozilla Firefox encounters a page that uses a plugin that isn't installed you're presented with the "Plugin Downloader" dialog which is not very nice at all. Fx it refers to Netscape.com to find and download plugins. You can see a screenshot of the old dialog here.

But that's all over now. At least for Mozilla Firefox. A new Plugin Downloader has landed and the screenshots looks very nice. A big improvement.

You can see screenshots of the new Download Installer here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

More information in bug 253046 and bug 244125.


August 20, 2004 07:19 AM | Posted in Mozilla

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29 Comments

Does the new Plugin Installer try to warn Users about malicious plugins? And does it use some sort of verification or something similar so that it won't be possible to easily deploy malicious trojans or something similar?

Comment by el Zeratulo at August 21, 2004 12:20 PM | Permalink

el Zeratulo: it will of course only be able to install plugins which are served by Netscape (or perhaps Mozilla themselves). As they have control over the plugins they offer, I am sure they won't allow the kind you are afraid of.

~Grauw

Site icon Comment by Laurens Holst at September 11, 2004 06:22 PM | Permalink

Netscape and/or Mozilla might not "allow" malicious plugins, but lots of people use networks that can be subverted (unencrypted wireless networks, for instance). Publicly signing the plugin or even the packaging of the plugin would go some ways to insuring that the recipient actually acquired what the "trustworthy" site was intending to send, no?

As for the quoted words, I don't think any site is bullet-proof so I don't think it's a good idea to suggest that trustworthiness comes from seeing a domain name in a link to a plugin. I'm sure more clever people than I can come up with a number of ways to fool a user into thinking that they're getting data from Netscape or Mozilla but it's actually coming from some malicious site instead.

Comment by J.B. Nicholson-Owens at September 11, 2004 08:25 PM | Permalink

Nicholson-Owens~

But then if the browser is the one that make a request to ask the server to send in a plugin, then the browser should have enough power to allow sending plugin request only from update.mozilla.org or something.

Then even if those people try to fake address, it won't hurt because the browser is sending a request to the server, let's say update.mozilla.org, and won't allow request of installing plugins to be sent from the server.

If you talk about wireless, then it's itself not really secure at this point anyways. It should be a higher level issue than the browser.

Site icon Comment by PLWong at September 15, 2004 06:39 AM | Permalink

I am curious if the plugins that will be searched for this new finder will be whitelisted to only use update.mozilla.org (as the 1.0pr has done with extensions), or manually add trusted domains ?

And as above, the 'Manual install' button should offer a warning to all plugins possibly being malicious if they are not from a whitelisted domain.

Comment by Ard Righ at September 15, 2004 07:29 AM | Permalink

Does the new version of Firefox use Sun's Java Plug-in? I noticed that when I went to load the Java Plug-in for use with Firefox 0.9 Sun's Java Console only had IE and Mozilla 1.1. Does that mean that Firefox doesn't taken advantage of Sun's Java Plug-in?

Comment by GlennR at September 16, 2004 03:34 AM | Permalink

Is there a way to disable this feature? It's annoying enough for me to switch back to 0.9/0.8 or even try to find some other browsers. Extremely annoying.

Comment by Era at September 16, 2004 10:32 PM | Permalink

Hello,
When I go to games.yahoo.com and try to play a game a screen shot of a puzzle peice comes up saying I have to "download plugin" well when I click on it it says no suitable plugin was found and I cannot view the page neccessary to play the game. Please let me know how I might fix this problem.

Thank you,
Rita

Comment by Rita Timar at September 17, 2004 04:31 AM | Permalink

Hi,
The new "Plugin Downloader", seems to have a bug. I am informed that I require plugins, but when I try to download a plugin I get a message stating that no plugins are available.
Without these required plugins most web pages do not load correctly.
Please cvan someone help?
Brian.

Comment by Brian at September 17, 2004 08:04 AM | Permalink

I noticed the same bug that Brian did. When attempting to view streaming video, I received a notice that the required plugins were missing and that they would be located and installed. However, the process ended with the message that "no plugins are available." Also, when I first installed and loaded Firefox, my homepage at SBC Yahoo had the notice that I required Flash Media 6 in order to view the multimedia images on the page. When I clicked on the link to download and install the newer version (I think it was 7.0) and then restarted Firefox, it stilled displayed the same notice that I would need to upgrade the Flash Media player. I was presented with the option of running the browser in "lite mode" which I selected. How do I return to the standard mode and how do I remedy the multimedia bug?

Comment by Mark at September 17, 2004 08:57 AM | Permalink

unwanted spaces at the begining of the text boxes when copied to notepad in firefox not seen in IE. Any solutions..

Comment by Linuxguy at September 17, 2004 01:47 PM | Permalink

I have the SAME problem as Mark and Brian...I go to my Homepage at SBC Yahoo and had a notice that I needed Flash 6.....I clicked on the link and installed 7.0 and had to reboot. I still have the same notice.

Comment by Rudy at September 18, 2004 04:20 AM | Permalink

I have the same problem as Mark, Brian and Rudy, but I notice the flash on other sites work fine.

Comment by sam at September 18, 2004 07:53 AM | Permalink

ack! my right click which was working just fine up til a wee while ago suddenly is gone ack! I wants it back, yes I does! Other than that Imma LOVING 1.0PR *GRIN*

Comment by codeunguru at September 18, 2004 08:19 AM | Permalink

I have succesfully used the FlashBlock plugin for months.
This past week I was forced to install the latest "Flash" version. It wiped out ALL my mozilla related settings.
Not bad enough, but since this unfortunate incident, Firebird will NOT load or install the FlashBlock plugin. Anyone else have this problem? Any fixes? I am suspecting macromedia may have dropped a key in the registry to incite this behavior,but am unsure where to look.
Word to the wise, DON'T INSTALL Flash 7!

Comment by ButchPrice at September 18, 2004 11:59 AM | Permalink

I am frustrated using Mozilla Firefox. I go to alot of websites, and pictures, (Jpgs) will not open at all. The only way to see them is when I right click where the picture is, and click "view image", and it will open in a new window.
This is so frustrating that I want to use another browser, and I soon will, because it makes me so mad.
NOBODY seems to know about this. I have asked Everybody I can think of, including Mozilla Tech Suport, and I never get an answer.
I am fed up with Firefox, and will not use it anymore if I don't get a solution to this. It has to be a setting or something, but Mozilla Tech Support is clueless.

Comment by Uncle Peek at September 18, 2004 07:11 PM | Permalink

To fix the images not showing up, have you tried going to Options->Web Features, and making sure 'Load images' box is checked?

Comment by Willy Wonka at September 19, 2004 12:14 AM | Permalink

I also am having trouble viewing some websites because apparently Firefox lacks the plugins. But the plugin downloader says "no plugin available."

I wonder if this is because websites produced by FrontPage have certain propietary features that only IE can view?

See: www.itspolitics.com to catch my drift.

Comment by Jim L at September 19, 2004 08:04 AM | Permalink

I am also having the same problem. I am using Firefox for Linux and when going to a website, get the message that a plug-in is required....then after the search, the message tells me that no plug-in is available.

Comment by zenarcher at September 19, 2004 12:14 PM | Permalink

Maybe they dont have all the plugins that we need yet, but soon will have...

Comment by DieHard at September 19, 2004 07:29 PM | Permalink

When will it be possiable to make copies of the bookmarks file as a html type files?? I reformatte my multidrives about ever six months and as of yet ,since I like the firefox ,I have start all over or write them down by hand ,or the paste and copy thing.. Either way that all takes to long!!!!!! As much as I hate IE, I still have to do double work keeping the same in it ,since I cant copy the html files from firefox..Come guys and gals, give us a fully straight forward approuch to this.. Ty for the good work so Far!! D

Comment by David at September 20, 2004 06:42 AM | Permalink

I too am getting the no plug-in available message. Is there any way to identify what plug in is needed so I can complain to the webmaster and the manufacturer of the plug-in?

Site icon Comment by Kevin R. Gallagher at September 20, 2004 04:43 PM | Permalink

Hello,
When I go to sierra.com into hoyle card games it will not let me sign. Tells me to download active plug in after doing so it says no suitable plugin was found and I cannot view the page neccessary to play the game. Please let me know how I might fix this problem.

Thank you,

Comment by Renae at September 21, 2004 06:36 AM | Permalink

There is no way to way in the user interface to disable displaying this yellow bar. Since i do not want to install flash (for looking at non-blockable moving ads) i geep getting this yellow bar.

(bugzilla seems to be down right now)

Could someone point me to the right preference to (in all.js?) to turn this off?

Comment by Maarten Geurts at September 21, 2004 11:02 AM | Permalink

I like firefox, but I have been unable to install the java plugin for jdk1.4.2 or jdk1.5.0RC. All of the online help seems to be for earlier versions of firefox, and don't work with firefox1.0

Comment by Robert Evans at September 21, 2004 08:00 PM | Permalink

Firefox is a life saver
compared to that other
columbia river browser. yes pluggins
are a big downer. but the privacy Firefox affords is worth more than all the
bells and whistles.
Some day in the near future Firefox will be completely compatible
as the other old browser is replaced.
long live Mozilla!!!

Comment by Hugh Von Niederhausern at September 22, 2004 02:00 AM | Permalink

Quote from https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=261655...

There is a way to disable it.

about:config -> plugin.default_plugin_disabled -> false, then restart

Comment by Matthew at July 14, 2005 12:59 AM | Permalink

wow. as often, i just come across this sort of blog(gish) weppage when googling specifics. but i'll comment on this topic... i'd never seen the "old" plugin dialog (shown in your screenshot). i'ts much more informative than teh current jigsaw icon (how appropriately symbolic: a monohued puzzle piece. solid color (or backside) jigsaws are more difficult to assemble than are variably colored puzzles)

Comment by splib at January 17, 2006 05:57 AM | Permalink

I HADE SUITABLE-PLUGINS ON SMACKDOWN BUT I LOST IT VEWING VIDEOS

Comment by ZACHARY at December 21, 2006 09:39 AM | Permalink

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