391707 - Mozilla Default Plug-in should have a description and should be Plugin (minus the -)

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Core Graveyard :: Plug-ins, defect)

Description

[u88484]

The 'Mozilla Default Plug-in' listed in the Add-ons manager should have a description and should be Plugin (minus the -). Quicktime does call and shows up as Plug-in but the Mozilla way is Plugin.  I created this bug for both issues since I believe these are fixed in the same file(s).

Sorry if not in the right component.

Comment 1

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

Should we even be listing the default plug-in in the UI?

Comment 2

[Smokey Ardisson (offline for a while; not following bugs - do not email)]

"plugin" works fine for a file's name extension in a world where you don't want non-alphanumerics in an extension, but anywhere you're not constrained by archaic software limitations, it makes sense to be literate and use "plug-in".

Witness the fact that on Mac OS (both 8.x/9.x and X), the plug-ins folder name is, in fact, "Internet Plug-ins".

It seems even this component name is "Plug-ins".

Giving the Default Plug-in a description seems reasonable, but let's not head back to the 1980s where we throw out grammar rules to avoid breaking primitive OSes ;)

Comment 3

[Robert Strong (they/them - no direct email)]

Just did a quick audit of what plugin vendors are using

Plug-in:
Adobe Acrobat - Adobe PDF Plug-In For Firefox and Netscape
Java(TM) Platform SE 6 U2 - Java Plug-in 1.6.0_02 for Netscape Navigator (DLL Helper)
Mozilla Default Plug-in - Default Plug-in
RealPlayer(tm) G2 LiveConnect-Enabled Plug-In (32-bit) - RealPlayer(tm) LiveConnect-Enabled Plug-In
Shockwave for Director - Adobe Shockwave for Director Netscape plug-in, version 10.2
Windows Media Player Plug-in Dynamic Link Library - Npdsplay dll

Plugin:
DivX Player Netscape Plugin - npdivxplayerplugin
DivX® Content Upload Plugin - DivX® Content Upload Plugin
Microsoft® Windows Media Player Firefox Plugin - np-mswmp
RealJukebox NS Plugin - RealJukebox Netscape Plugin
RealPlayer Version Plugin - 6.0.12.1578
VLC Multimedia Plugin - Version 0.8.6c, copyright 1996-2006 The VideoLAN Team  http://www.videolan.org/ 

Plugin and Plug-in:
QuickTime Plug-in 7.2 - The QuickTime Plugin allows you to view a wide variety of multimedia content in Web pages. For more information, visit the  QuickTime  Web site.

Neither:
DivX® Web Player - DivX® Web Player
Shockwave Flash - Shockwave Flash 9.0  r47
Windows Genuine Advantage - 1.5.0723.1

Comment 4

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

Why are we showing this at all? What are the consequences of disabling/enabling it?

Comment 5

[Jesse Ruderman]

Why do we even still ship the default plugin now that we use the anonymous-content-based UI for missing plugins (bug 83754)?  Seems like we should be able to get rid of it.  If it still works at all, it probably sends you to the laughably outdated Netscape plug-ins page...

Comment 6

[u88484]

Disabling it has no apparent side effects for me on windows.  I browser around for a couple days and no change with it enabled/disabled.

Comment 7

[Johnny Stenback (:jst)]

There's really no reason to ship the default plugin any more, it hasn't been used since before Firefox 1.0 AFAIK.

If someone wants to whip up a patch that takes it out of the packaging, and default build, we should take that patch and stop shipping it...

Comment 8

[u88484]

(In reply to comment #7)
> There's really no reason to ship the default plugin any more, it hasn't been
> used since before Firefox 1.0 AFAIK.
> 
> If someone wants to whip up a patch that takes it out of the packaging, and
> default build, we should take that patch and stop shipping it...
> 

Filed bug 405867 and resolving this WONTFIX

Comment 9

[Samuel Sidler (old account; do not CC)]

(In reply to comment #8)
> Filed bug 405867

Which was duped to bug 261751 for those of you following along.