Dammit, Microsoft…
Why, when I’m over being pissed off for something, you go and pull additional bullshit?
Installed .Net Framework 3.5 SP1, and after restarting Firefox for unrelated reasons, notice that a new add-on has been installed:
Like a virus
The installer didn’t ask, and what’s this? I can’t uninstall it? Are you fucking kidding me? Oh look, they changed my user-agent string too:
Go away!
To remove this bullshit, do the following:
- Open Regedit
- Goto HKLM\SOFTWARE\Mozilla\Firefox\extensions
- Delete the key {20a82645-c095-46ed-80e3-08825760534b}
- Restart Firefox.
To remove the user-agent string (add-ons like User Agent Switcher will not change the default), open the about:config page, and in the Filter box, type “useragent” and you should see “general.useragent.extra.microsoftdotnet” somewhere near the top.
Reset this value so it becomes empty (it will be automatically deleted).
Fuck you, Microsoft. Next time, ask. You also went out of your way to ensure it couldn’t be uninstalled. What’s up with that? Just provide a link to the installer. If the add-on is something we want as users, we can install it ourselves.
Update (9/19): Commenter Matti brings up that it’s because of the method of install that you can’t uninstall this add-on, like any other add-on installed via the registry.
You can install an addon with 2 ways :
The user clicks on a webpage to install the addon (used on addons.mozilla.org).
Those addons can be uninstalled because Firefox installed them
The second way is to use the registry which is the preferred way for any Software on the System that wants to add a Firefox extension. Used for example from some Anti-Virus/Firewall Software like AVG or in this case Microsoft.
You can NOT uninstall such extensions in Firefox because they are installed outside of Firefox and there is no way for Firefox to uninstall this in a correct way.
That you can not uninstall it is not Microsofts fault and it’s not Mozilla.org fault.
You can of course bitch MS for installing such an addon
Matti:
You’re right, of course. I can deal with Mozilla’s position that they won’t allow you to uninstall third-party-installed add-ons from within Firefox, because I understand the reason for doing so. That being said, how third-party applications work without a necessary browser add-on is not my concern, and if removing such an add-on would cause interoperability issues, then messaging could be built in to warn the user that their actions could cause problems.
All that aside, what I really had a problem with was the utter lack of notification that an add-on was being installed.
Microsoft went to great lengths with XP SP2 and Vista to ensure users were in full control of their machines, then they do the exact opposite by secretly installing their software. I understand their reason for wanting the add-on, since it’s part of the .Net Framework update, and not specific to Visual Studio, but the whole thing still bothers me.