Firefox Web Browser — Plugin Information

Fully Supported Browsers

Browser	Version	Plugin Checking
Apple Safari	4	Full
Google Chrome	4	Full
Mozilla Firefox	3.0+	Full
Opera	10.5	Full

Limited Support

	Browser	Version	Plugin Checking
	Microsoft Explorer	7+	Limited*
* Plugin Version checking is only done for a limited list of plugins (BrowserPlug, Flash, Java, etc) due to technical limitations of the platform.

How does it work?

The Mozilla Plugin Check page is a general tool for keeping web browser plugins up to date.

Fully supported browsers do the following:

Gathers every plugin's metadata and optionally its live data
Check with the Plugin Directory by mime-type
Try to match the plugin metadata with information we know about plugins.
If there is a match, then check to see if the version is outdated or has a security vulnerability.

Although the supported top plugins are a healthy portion of the traffic on the internet, we have a long way to go in terms of covering all plugins.

Plugin vendors can update their release information.

Why is IE Support Limited?

Unlike other modern browsers, Internet Explorer lacks a plugins JavaScript object. Instead of dynamically checking the plugins object to discover installed plugins, with IE plugin version checking is done with specific ActiveX code against a limited list of plugins. We'd love to check more plugins, patches welcome here.

Open Source, Open Processes

Get the full nitty gritty details and help us keep users safe with the project wiki page.

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How can I help?

Find a bug? Write a Bug Report and help us test this project.

Want to Dig Deeper?

As with all Mozilla projects, Plugin Check is developed in the open, and we welcome participation from everyone.

Hack on the project sources:

Pick an unsupported plugin and write JavaScript code for detecting its version on Internet Explorer using ActiveX APIs. All front end code is at the Perfidies of the Web project.
Hack on the back end code for plugins.mozilla.org by grabbing the code from the Plugindir project.

Chat with us on IRC (irc.mozilla.org, #pfs)

Known Issues

RealPlayer on Mac and Linux cannot be detected because it doesn't expose version information in the name, description, or via C++ code.
Adobe Reader can only be accurately detected by Firefox 3.6+. Adobe can add a version number to their Plugin Description to fix this for modern browsers.

Mozilla Firefox

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