348595 - Plugin download progress box should not be modal

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Toolkit Graveyard :: Plugin Finder Service, defect)

Description

[Lloyd Wood]

One of the tabs I'm viewing tells me I need to install Flash to view the content on this new install of Firefox. I agree to download and install it -- and then I am prevented from using any other tab while the Flash plugin is downloaded. And I'm on a dialup modem... quite a wait.

The plugin download window should be window specific, dropping down from and overlayng the current tab. It should be possible to use other tabs and create new browser windows while the plugin is downloaded, just as you can do when a normal download takes place. Only the current window/tab is affected by unavailability of the plugin.

Comment 1

[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.)