Remove Firefox Add-ons
February 11th, 2008 · by David Bradley
If your browser is feeling a little bloated and running slow, there are various things you can do to speed up Firefox, but you might also like to remove Firefox add-ons to release memory and make things move a little faster too. It’s sometimes a good idea to remove Firefox addons to improve security too, check this post to see why. Anyway, here’s how to remove Firefox add-ons and reclaim the Web:
So, how do you remove Firefox addons? It’s a relatively straightforward process. In the menu bar, usually at the top of the browser choose Tools, Add-ons and a little dialog box will pop-up. It will look something like this, although yours will be different unless by an amazing coincidence you’re using the same addons as me!
Next, simply highlight (with a single click) the addon you wish to remove and click the Uninstall button. The next box that appears will ask you to confirm the removal of the addon, click yes, if you’re sure.
The program will then be uninstalled. And a message will appear in the dialog box usually to tell you that the addon will be uninstalled when Firefox is restarted. You do get a second chance at this point to cancel the process if you have had second thoughts or are not sure.
If you’re definitely certain, then close Firefox and restart. The addon you uninstalled should now be nowhere to be seen. If you have lots of addons to remove, then that may involve a lot of restarting, you might like to download an addon that allows you to do a quick restart with a single click. And, once you’re finished you can remove that addon too!
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7 responses so far ↓
David Buchmann // Feb 21, 2008 at 6:34 am
Or you could simply uninstall all of the addons that you don’t want anymore and restart once. I’ve had to do mass addon cleanup before (sometimes I get a bit overzealous when looking through the lists on the mozilla site heh).
-David-
David Bradley // Feb 21, 2008 at 7:27 am
David, yes, removing just the ones you don’t need does help. It’s not going to get around the memory leak problem either way. I’m watching FF memory usage in Task Manager right now and it’s creeping up from 157,988…161,568…it’s bizarre. I hear they haven’t fixed that in version 3 either.
db
David Buchmann // Feb 21, 2008 at 5:42 pm
That’s rather disappointing considering how long FF has had a leak. Hopefully they’ll get it sorted out sometime soon as a memory can be a pita…especially when it’s something you use constantly.
-David-
Kin // Mar 12, 2008 at 12:51 am
That’s odd. I thought that some lifehacker comments were saying the leak is hardly a problem in the beta. We’ll see, I guess - those of us too lazy/uninterested in getting the beta.
David Bradley // Mar 12, 2008 at 8:12 am
“hardly a problem”? Maybe they’ve tightened it up a little, but last I heard it was still leaking. By the way, installing beta software is not necessarily for the faint hearted, you don’t have to be lazy or uninterested not to want to risk the security or stability of your computer.
db
Kin // Mar 12, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Hmm, ok, I should have clarified it instead of just passing it by. What I really meant, is those of us, for whatever reason, who aren’t trying the beta.
For me, it stems from not wanting to deal with a problem if it crashes.
And also, I suppose, my perspective is weak because on neither my 2gig ram desktop or my 504mb ram (8mb on board graphics) laptop have I found the leak to be a frequent problem. So hardly a problem is the next step down for me, if they tightened it at all.
David Bradley // Mar 12, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Fair comment Kin.
db
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