911017 - Firefox should supply an executable for the user to kill plugin-container.exe process whenever needed

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Core Graveyard :: Plug-ins, defect)

Description

[t8av]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:23.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/23.0 (Beta/Release)
Build ID: 20130814063812

Steps to reproduce:

I was viewing a website that contained some embedded flash.
The flash caused the browser slowness/hang.
I was looking for an easy/fast way to kill the plugin-container.exe process.



Actual results:

I could not find an easy/fast way to kill the plugin-container.exe process.
I was forced to use Microsoft's Sysinternals Process Explorer, looked for the process and killed it.


Expected results:

Firefox should supply an executable for the user to kill plugin-container.exe process whenever needed.

This executable should be separated from the browser itself because it should be used whenever browser slowness/hang occurs.

Comment 1

[Loic]

Terrible idea for me, the user shouldn't have to kill this process while he's using Firefox. In addition, many users know how to kill a process with their OS if need be.

Comment 2

[Georg Fritzsche [:gfritzsche]]

Yes, that doesn't seem like the right way to address such problems.

Currently, Firefox shows a dialog after a short time of being blocked by plugins like Flash, which allows you to stop them. After a little more time, the plugin is automatically stopped.

If that isn't sufficient, then you will be able to set plugins to "Ask to activate" in Firefox 25 (bug 886423) which allows you to only enable them where needed.

Comment 3

[t8av]

(In reply to Georg Fritzsche [:gfritzsche] from comment #2)
> Yes, that doesn't seem like the right way to address such problems.
> 
> Currently, Firefox shows a dialog after a short time of being blocked by
> plugins like Flash, which allows you to stop them. After a little more time,
> the plugin is automatically stopped.
> 
> If that isn't sufficient, then you will be able to set plugins to "Ask to
> activate" in Firefox 25 (bug 886423) which allows you to only enable them
> where needed.

"Ask to activate" is a good idea, but why not to do it per website/domain? do you mean to say that the user needs to approve plugins every single time? I think he/she should approve it per domain.

The dialog box that firefox shows, is a very partial solution because it works only sometimes, and even after user approval it sometimes does not solve the problem. In addition, nobody likes jumping windows such as dialog boxes.

Reply to Loic : Maybe it sounds a terrible idea to kill the plugins process, but I am forced to do it often due to browser hang.

Comment 4

[Georg Fritzsche [:gfritzsche]]

(In reply to t8av from comment #3)
> "Ask to activate" is a good idea, but why not to do it per website/domain?
> do you mean to say that the user needs to approve plugins every single time?
> I think he/she should approve it per domain.

It will be per host/domain - you can try it out in Firefox Aurora or Nightly now if you're curious.

> The dialog box that firefox shows, is a very partial solution because it
> works only sometimes, and even after user approval it sometimes does not
> solve the problem. In addition, nobody likes jumping windows such as dialog
> boxes.

If the plugin hang dialog doesn't work for everything, can you please file bugs with steps to reproduce so that can be addressed?

Comment 5

[t8av]

(In reply to Georg Fritzsche [:gfritzsche] from comment #4)
> 
> If the plugin hang dialog doesn't work for everything, can you please file
> bugs with steps to reproduce so that can be addressed?

When I have few tabs open, the flash that cause the hang can appear in different locations, so stopping one, using the dialog box, will not solve the hang.

Usually I just kill the process which almost always solves the problem. Fast and easy and works.

Comment 6

[Georg Fritzsche [:gfritzsche]]

(In reply to t8av from comment #5)
> When I have few tabs open, the flash that cause the hang can appear in
> different locations, so stopping one, using the dialog box, will not solve
> the hang.

The dialog box basically stops the plugin process, which should stop all Flash instances. Please file a new bug on your issues so we can narrow that problem down specifically.

Comment 7

[t8av]

(In reply to Georg Fritzsche [:gfritzsche] from comment #2)
> Yes, that doesn't seem like the right way to address such problems.
> 
> then you will be able to set plugins to "Ask to activate"
> in Firefox 25 (bug 886423) which allows you to only enable them
> where needed.

 "Ask to activate" plugins sounds like a very needed option. Is it really going to be available starting the nest version of Firefox?

I am tired of websites that cause my browser to crush using heavy and unnecessary usage of plugins such as flash.

Comment 8

[t8av]

I think that "allow add-on per website" is the feature of the year.

Most Firefox crushes are related to undesired and unnecessary activation of add-ons by websites, mostly flash.


Please hurry to implement this feature!

Comment 9

[Loic]

Not add-ons, but plugins. If you want to test click-to-play, set about:config > plugins.click_to_play = true.

Comment 10

[t8av]

(In reply to Loic from comment #9)
> Not add-ons, but plugins. If you want to test click-to-play, set
> about:config > plugins.click_to_play = true.

So far works good. I will update you if I see any problem.

Two issues:
1. click_to_play configuration should be "true" by default.

2. What happens if in a web page you have a main flash video + flash ads? You want to see the main video but you don't want to see the flash ads (because you are forced to download many MB that you don't need). Is there a possibility to confirm click_to_play per video and not per page?

Comment 11

[Georg Fritzsche [:gfritzsche]]

You get the UI in tools->addons->plugins without plugins.click_to_play in Firefox 25 and a redesign of the whole CtP feature in Firefox 26 - [1] has the details on that.
For providing feedback it would probably be best to test the feature in Firefox Nightly [2], discuss general issues on dev-firefox [3] and file new bugs if you find something that is broken.

1: https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2013/09/24/plugin-activation-in-firefox/
2: http://nightly.mozilla.org/
3: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/firefox-dev

Comment 12

[t8av]

Didn't find any bugs yet. Looks nice.

One think I would like to know (and I am sure that many other people ask): how to edit to list of websites that are allowed a specific plugin?

Comment 13

[Georg Fritzsche [:gfritzsche]]

I think as of now we don't have central UI for that, bug 775857 should cover it later.
Lets take further discussions to more suitable channels though (e.g. support.mozilla.org for usage, firefox-dev for design-feedback/-critique etc.).