The latest Firefox update (3.6.17) automatically opens a plugin check page every time you start the browser now. What a PITA! Here's how to disable it and restore your sanity.

Type in an empty browser tab the url
about:config

Filter for the word plugins, you'll notice 2 entries which control the behaviour
plugins.update.notifyUser
plugins.update.url


These are defined in pref.js

"C:\Documents and Settings\~\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\pk09cvaf.default\prefs.js"

user_pref("plugins.update.notifyUser", true);
user_pref("plugins.update.url", "https://www.mozilla.com/%LOCALE%/plugincheck/";



You can try toggling the boolean value to false and even removing the url string, but it doesn't matter, they stubbornly seem to return to default.

The solution is to create your own user.js file in the same directory
http://kb.mozillazine.org/User.js_file

Add the line

user_pref("plugins.update.notifyUser", false);


That seems to work, stupid browser behaviour fixed.

Kayaker

I have the same lines for 4 and 3.x versions and I don't have problems, are you sure it is not strictly related with a specific plugin?

ciao!

Ah, someone at the mozilla support site figured out which plugin was giving the problems since I wrote that - Viewpoint Media Player - uninstall from the Control Panel (or update it I guess).

Oh well, sometimes the sledgehammer approach works well too