725760 - References to pfs.mozilla.org/plugins/ should be reviewed

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Toolkit Graveyard :: Plugin Finder Service, defect)

Description

[Matthew N. [:MattN]]

AMO removed it's plugin page in bug 686970 and redirected requests for it to plugin check in Bug 692162.

There are in-product links to pfs.mozilla.org/plugins/ which are no longer useful or are redundant because they end up pointing to plugin check (after 6 redirects!)

* The PFS UI has a button to this URL with the text: "Find out more about Plugins or manually find missing plugins."  The plugin check page is confusing for this since the focus of the page is a list of existing plugins and there isn't info about finding a plugin. See bug 678707 comment 7.

* about:plugins has a link to pfs.mozilla.org/plugins/ directly above a link to plugin check.  This is now redundant.

Do we have a better page to redirect people to on the server side? The links from plugin check to SUMO don't seem to go to an article about finding missing plugins.  Perhaps https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/Using%20plugins%20with%20Firefox could add some more info.

Comment 1

[rambotrader]

I am having the same problems that a number of users had.  Instead of offering a solution the bug has been redirected to this page.  Unhelpful.

To repeat again:  when  in Hotmail I keep getting the message "additional plugins are required to display all the media on this page".  SO how the   heck would I know WHICH PLUGINS.  I mean I checked that all the plugins were up to date.  They were.  And I have never had this issue before.  

If this type of message is going to show up then it needs to be stated WHICH PLUGIN is missing or some clue given.  If not we have a cryptic Sudoko puzzle.  Given how much time users spend in front of their screens a user friendly browser should do better.  Help??????

Comment 2

[Justin Dolske [:Dolske]]

Bug 836415 has now removed the Plugin Finder Service (PFS) from Firefox. As a result, I'm closing all the remaining PFS bugs.

If you're getting this bugmail for an ancient PFS bug, the basic summary of the world today is:

* NPAPI plugins are a dying technology
* PFS was already restricted to assisting with only the 4 most common plugins
* Sites commonly provide their own UI for install a required plugin
* Mozilla is generally focusing on  improving the web platform so that proprietary plugins are not required.

(Note that "plugins" are a completely separate from "browser extensions", such at those found on addons.mozilla.org. The latter are not going anywhere, and are not impacted by the removal of PFS.)