137514 - [RFE]pref. to prompt before allowing a plugin to execute

Status: VERIFIED WONTFIX

(Core Graveyard :: Plug-ins, enhancement, P4)

Description

[Mark Smith [:mcs]]

It would be very nice to have a per-plugin preference which, if enabled, would
cause the browser to prompt the user before allowing a specific plugin to run.
That way, the user could leave the Java or Flash plugin installed, but the
plugins would not be loaded when not really necessary (a lot of sites use Flash
animations, but I rarely care to see them; on the other hand, sometimes I do
want to see them).

One problem might be that installed plugins probably cause the browser to send
additional HTTP Accept: headers (for the additional MIME types supported by a
plugin). If the preference I suggest were implemented, the browser would claim
to support certain MIME types but then ignore them, and some web sites might be
written to conditionally use something like Flash. But this is speculation; I
don't know exactly how plugin loading occurs.

Comment 1

[shrirang khanzode]

Will this be handled by the 'plugin manager' bug? 

Comment 2

[rubydoo123]

so, are you kind of thinking the pref to act like the image pref for don't 
download images?

Comment 3

[Alex Bishop]

Plug-in Manager is bug 19118, but I don't think this is a duplicate.

Comment 4

[Mark Smith [:mcs]]

To answer beppe: sure, plugin preferences that worked like those for images
would be very useful. The confirm dialog should tell the user which plugin will
be loaded though (so I know if I am saying yes to Flash vs. Java vs. a TIFF
viewer plugin).

Comment 5

[rubydoo123]

That sounds interesting, setting to future and P4, will readdress this request 
when we review all enhancement requests.

Comment 6

[rubydoo123]

The plug-ins triage team (av, beppe, peterl, serge and shrir) have reviewed this
issue and have made the following determination:

We will be doing a variant of this request, we will be following current image
implementation: using content policy.

Comment 7

[Mark Smith [:mcs]]

Is there a bug that tracks the feature you do plan to implement? I assume
"content policy" means the ability to block some sites, etc. like you can do for
images?

Comment 8

[rubydoo123]

oh, sorry I thought I entered the bug numbers: bug 44973 and bug 144262

Comment 9

[av (gone)]

The last one should read ' bug 144263 '.

Comment 10

[shrirang khanzode]

marking verif, pls reopen stating a reason, Thx!

Comment 11

[Jesse Ruderman]

See also bug 169330, replace usually-unwanted plugins (e.g. Flash) with "click
here to run the plugin".  That's similar to this solution but doesn't require a
prompt.