Unknown plugins

[rick7]

An article by a senior Mozilla developer a month ago indicated that one of the most important things we can do to protect our online security is to ensure that our Firefox plug-ins are up to date. After going to the Plugin Checker page as recommended, I find that seven of my plugins are "unknown" and therefore presumably Firefox can't do anything about them on its own:

Windows Presentation Foundation
NVIDIA 3D Streaming Vision (Nvidia is my graphics card)
NVIDIA 3D Vision
iTunes Application Detector
ActiveTouch General Plugin Container
Google Update
Google Talk Plugin Video Renderer

What can I do about these plugins? Why doesn't Firefox know about them?

I see there was a very popular thread on this same subject in 2012 but apparently no good answer to the problem was received. It's now archived https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/759621.

Thanks for any help.

[JayhawksRock]

All of those plugins you have are part of software that YOU installed in Windows. Firefox has no obligation to protect you from your own decision to install software in the OS nor does Firefox have permission.... Remove or disable the software in Windows control panel > Add/Remove programs

[rick7]

ok, thanks -- so you're saying that I installed these 7 plugins as part of some Windows software installation process that I did outside of Firefox but that these software programs happened to come with Firefox plugins components that attached themselves to Firefox. Presumably, the six plugins that the Plugin Update Page does know about (it's telling me they're Up to Date) were specifically installed by Firefox.

One curious thing is that "Google Talk Plugin Video Renderer" is unknown to Firefox, but the "Google Talk Plugin" is known to it and is marked Up to Date.

I note there is a Research button, and if it I click it Firefox does a Google search for that plugin, presumably allowing me to research on my own if there's a more recent plugin. But I see you mention that Firefox actually doesn't have permission to protect me from any of these "unknown" plugins. Is the suggestion that even if I get the most recent version of these, that permission still would not be granted?

Thanks.

[RobertJ]

.
FWIW, Firefox does not install any plug-ins; you do. If compatible, they can be used by Firefox or any other browser you may use.

.

[dfoulkes]

Just to add... if you were to open up any of the other browsers that you have installed and you got down into the appropriate settings/info areas... you would find that the same "Plugins" exist in those as they do in Firefox... all browsers do that AFAIK.

[Gingerbread Man]

Feel free to vote for bug reports to keep track of any progress, but please don't post comments unless you have technical information to add. See the Bugzilla etiquette page for details.

• Bug 1017190 - Add iTunes Application Detector
• Bug 1017182 - Add Google Update
• Bug 1017188 - Add Google Talk Plugin Video Renderer
• Edit: Bug 1024879 - Add NVIDIA 3D Vision

Windows Presentation Foundation

That's bug 579282, but it's weird that you have it in the first place:

The WPF plug-in for Firefox is installed with the .NET Framework 3.5. Window 7 includes the .NET Framework 3.5, but does not include the WPF plug-in for Firefox. You cannot install the WPF plug-in for Firefox on Windows 7.

— Firefox Add-ons to Support .NET Application Deployment | MSDN

ActiveTouch General Plugin Container

Apparently installed by Cisco WebEx. Type about:plugins into the address bar and press Enter. Note the file path.
http://www.webex.com
I can't file a report for you because I don't know where you can get this thing, or if you can get it without registering or paying.

What can I do about these plugins?

Aside from the apparent Cisco plug-in, I think the origin of the rest isn't much of a mystery. From top to bottom, they are updated by Windows Update, along with your graphics drivers, along with iTunes, updates itself, updated by Google Update.

Why doesn't Firefox know about them?

If you encounter an unknown plug-in message,

1. Check if there's a report filed under Other → Websites → plugins.mozilla.org.
   https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/query.cgi?format=advanced
2. If no report exists, file one and post the link to it here. Type about:plugins into the address bar and press Enter, and include the relevant information in your report.
   https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=Websites

[KWierso]

An article by a senior Mozilla developer a month ago indicated that one of the most important things we can do to protect our online security is to ensure that our Firefox plug-ins are up to date. After going to the Plugin Checker page as recommended, I find that seven of my plugins are "unknown" and therefore presumably Firefox can't do anything about them on its own:

Windows Presentation Foundation
NVIDIA 3D Streaming Vision (Nvidia is my graphics card)
NVIDIA 3D Vision
iTunes Application Detector
ActiveTouch General Plugin Container
Google Update
Google Talk Plugin Video Renderer

What can I do about these plugins? Why doesn't Firefox know about them?

I see there was a very popular thread on this same subject in 2012 but apparently no good answer to the problem was received. It's now archived https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/759621.

Thanks for any help.

You'd probably not notice anything different if you were to set all of those plugins to "Never activate" and then restart Firefox, and doing so would reduce the attack surface of your computer that you present to the internet.

[rick7]

KWierso, never activating the plugins for my graphics card wouldn't be noticeable by me?

Many thanks for the replies. Much appreciated.

[KWierso]

How often do you view 3D content being streamed to you from websites? That's all those nvidia plugins allow you to do.

[riverman2]

Protect Firefox from itself
New Plugin Disabler

[LoudNoise]

Actually, the dev is no longer going to support this. See https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo ... developers for the notice and for the solution to the problem.

[riverman2]

yes, alternative solution was to set hidden pref plugin.default.state to 0, but there was not an problem with New Plugin Disabler itself and working just fine in v29, and you even got notification when an new plugin get disable.

[Gingerbread Man]

In future versions — Firefox 31, I think — unknown plug-ins will be Ask to Activate by default. The same goes for dubious known plug-ins like Google Update.

Keeping plug-ins disabled is still better though.