*This is about updating Firefox plug-ins, not extensions.
If you select Tools -> Add-ons from the Firefox menu bar, you’ll get a list of all extensions, themes and plug-ins that are currently installed in your copy of Firefox.
The same add-ons dialog has a “Find Updates” feature to help you figure out if you are running any out-dated extensions but that doesn’t work with your plug-ins. How do you then find out that you are running the latest versions of all plug-ins?
It’s simple now. You can open the Firefox browser and visit the Plugins Check page hosted on mozilla.org. This will create a list of all plug-ins that are installed on your system and will match that data with its own list to determine if you are running an older version that has been marked out-of-date.
In case this online check fails for a particular plugin, you can click the “Research” button to perform a search on Google using the plug-in name as the search query. This is not always accurate but you’ll at least reach the vendor’s website that is officially hosting the plug-in.
It makes sense to visit the plug-ins checker page occasionally because older plug-ins not just make your browser insecure but they also make it more unstable. David Tenser of Mozilla says 30% of the reported crashes are caused by old plugins.
Find this article at: http://www.labnol.org/software/update-firefox-plugins/10583/
Reader Comments
Thanks so much for this link. I just started using Firefox about 2 months ago and I am loving it. It’s so much better than IE. Don’t know what took me so long!
Written by Roschelle on 10.16.09
Thanks for this post. I am amazed at how much better Firefox is overall. And they continue to enhance its functionality. Dealing with clients all the time, it’s amazing to me how much faster support issues can be explained when the client is using Firefox.
Written by Tony Chimento on 10.19.09