Uninstall search plugins

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Revision as of 06:47, 24 February 2005 by Ram einstein (talk | contribs) (→‎Notes)
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This article applies to both Mozilla and Firefox.

After installing plugins from Mycroft you might want to get rid of those you don't use.

  1. Go to the installation directory of Mozilla or Firefox. (1)
  2. Locate the subfolder "searchplugins". (2)
  3. Delete both SRC and GIF/PNG files for each plugin.
  4. Restart Firefox and the deleted plugins will have disappeared.

Example: If you want to get rid of the default Google search plugin, you will delete "google.src" and "google.png".

Notes

(1) a. On GNU/Linux, you will need root privileges, unless you've installed the program somewhere the user has access to. To obtain root privileges, either

  1. logout and log in as root 
  2. Fire up the console and type su (followed by the root password)

NOTE: Both procedures require root password. The second enables you to work only in console mode only.

The path may vary and doing a search on your computer (from "/") for "firefox", "mozilla", "searchplugins", "plugins" will help. If Mozilla and Firefox were installed using a standard update manager and not manually, this path is ususally "/usr/lib/mozilla-<version>" and "/usr/lib/firefox-<version>" for Mozilla and Firefox users respectively. eg. "/usr/lib/mozilla-1.7.3" and "/usr/lib/firefox-1.0". NOTE: Do not confuse your installation folder with your profile folder).


b. On Windows, this is usually "C:\Program Files\Mozilla\" and "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\" for Mozilla and Firefox users respectively. This path may vary on a per computer basis and doing a search on your computer for "Mozilla", "Firefox", "searchplugins" will help.


c. On Mac OS X, it is usually under your Applications folder.



(2) Note for Mac OS X users: The "searchplugins" folder is within the Firefox Applications folder (Mozilla.app or Firefox.app), but clicking on it will start the program. To open this folder and see the folders beneath: Ctrl-click "Mozilla.app" or "Firefox.app" and select "Show Package Contents". The folder should be at:

/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/searchplugins

Or

/Applications/Mozilla.app/Contents/MacOS/searchplugins