281251 - Browser is nagging me about plugins with no option to stop it doing so. This is not user friendly.

Status: VERIFIED DUPLICATE of bug 268936

(Firefox :: General, enhancement)

Description

[Raptor Ramjet]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0

Maybe what I am about to explain should not really be classed as a bug but is
more of a feature request.  However I've tried raising the issue in the forums
and nobody cared.  I was simply rather rudely told to "download the source and
do it yourself".  

But what I am about to describe is immensely annoying and goes directly against
your slogan of "taking back the web".

When I first encountered Mozilla Firefox one of it's killer features was the
fact that you could block pop ups.  Not only that but, unlike Microsofts
Internet Explorer (IE), it didn't give me a nagging pop up every time I visited
a site that used an Active-X control.  Being savvy enought to know that an
Active-X control could do almost anything on my system I was totally unwilling
to allow third parties to install them whenever they liked.  And boy was I
getting fed up with IE telling me that I "needed" to install some Active-X
control every single time I visited an "infected" website.

So when Firefox first came out I was overjoyed as here at last was a browser
that seemed to want to give me, the user, control of my web browsing experience.
 For a time all was well and browsing the web was a pleasure again.

Sadly however this was not to last.  At some point just prior to version 1.0
Firefox became nagware.  Eh What ? I hear you say.  What am I talking about ? 
I'm talking about the "little yellow bar" that appears at the top of the page
every time I visit a site that uses a plugin that I don't want to install.  The
"little yellow bar" that behaves just like IEs nagging Active-X popup by not
giving me an option to turn it off.

So why the sudden change in browser behaviour ?  You seem to be going out of
your way to give me control of my browsing experience and then suddenly you go
all Microsoft "We know what's best for you" on me. Don't you trust me to know
what I want to install on my own computer ?  

Why can't you simply give me the option to say "No thankyou. I don't want to
install this plugin now and I don't want you to prompt me to install this plugin
ever again".  This would be so simple to implement and, without trying too hard,
I can think of two ways to do it.

Firstly you could add another button and a check box into the "little yellow
bar" that appears.  A button with "No thankyou" and a checkmark for "Don't ask
me about installing this plugin again".  Secondly you could provide an
"about:config" setting that stops the browser prompting me about plugins
altogether "PromptToInstallMissingPlugins: True or False".

If you wanted to you could even add a setting in the preferences so I could see
which plugins I'd blocked just in case I wanted to unblock one.

Please will you implement something similar in Firefox.  The issue is user
control of their browsing experience.  Firefox used to give it to me but this
continual unwanted prompting is taking it back again.

Sorry but I'm getting dissilusioned with the web.  I love HTML, I love CSS, I
love server side scripting technology, I don't even mind a nice bit of client
side Javascript.  But what I hate are Flash animations, animated GIFs and other
such crud that is invariably used for some sort of inane "wannabe digital TV"
function.  So I don't run plugins any more.  Not one.  I've even started
thinking about only using Lynx on my Linux box as it's the last browser that
doesn't nag me to install plugins.

Please give me back control of my browser.  Firefox used to be wonderful.  Now
it's just irritating me as much as "the other" browser.   And all because it
won't stop nagging me to install plugins I don't want.

Thankyou.


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Visit *any* web site that contains plugin content that you don't care about
and don't want to view.  
2.  Wait for Firefox to nag you with the "little yellow bar" that appears at the
top of page.
3.  Prepare ritual implements to craft a mighty curse against the developer(s)
who disregarded the principle of giving the user control by failing to include a
"Don't ask me again" option in the prompt.

Actual Results:  
I became dissilusioned with the current build of Firefox and wished to smite 
things.

Expected Results:  
Given me the option to say that not only did I not want to install the plugin, I
didn't want to be nagged about installing it the next time I visited a page that
used the same plugin.  The internet is not Digital TV !

Comment 1

[Jo Hermans]

bug 268936 / bug 261655

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 268936 ***

Comment 2

[Jesse Ruderman]

*** Bug 311761 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***