14 December, 2005

Tholving The Theme Thituation

Right. Enough of that.

I'm not sure how I got left off the V.I.P. notification list when the new level release of the Firefox browser came out, but come out it did. I like to stay on top of such things, so I promptly downloaded the Firefox 1.5 installation, uninstalled my existing version, and installed the new one. All went smoothly, as usual, but when I set about updating my various themes and extensions, I ran into a problem.

When I clicked on the Install link, I received one of those thin yellow warning bars just under the tabs saying that I needed to enable the software installation feature. No surprise there; I typically leave software installation disabled. Firefox was on guard, and this pleased me.

Off I went to the Tools => Options => Content panel to enable software installation. But what the...? The panel had changed and no longer provided a check box to enable software installation. "Warn me when web sites try to install extensions or themes" was where the old option used to be, so I rolled my eyes and unchecked it, thinking someone had simply decided to "enhance" the old wording.

No dice. No matter what I tried, I couldn't install new versions of my favorite themes.

"But I want to install software," I muttered to the recalcitrant program.

Firefox crossed its non-existent arms and widened its stance.

"None... shall... pass."

Right. It was time to get nasty. Off I went a-Googling and in short order found an article that addressed my problem and explained how I'd been hoist by my own petard. Firefox's habit of leaving all settings intact when you upgrade from one version to the next is normally one of its more endearing traits. In this case, however, not so much.

It turns out that if you have software installation disabled in your Firefox 1.0.x installation and upgrade to 1.5, the setting is carried over. This would be fine were it not for the fact that the checkbox to enable it has been removed from the content options dialogue. Fortunately, the fix is simple:
  1. Type "about:config" in the address bar and hit enter.
  2. Type "xpinstall.enabled" in the filter bar.
  3. If the value for "xpinstall.enabled" is "false", double click the entry to switch it to "true".
That's it. Easy cheesy; pulse rate returning to normal.

Now playing: L7, Bricks Are Heavy

2 comments:

Foo said...

Hrm. "They" wanted you to pay for a Firefox installation? Most perturbatory.

To the best of my knowledge, all the product downloads from the official Firefox site

http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/

are free of charge. At the download page for languages other than English and platforms other than Windows

http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/all.html

I don't see any mention of fees, either.

I specifically didn't make the above links live, in case the reason you were scared is that you thought this Foo character might be trying to send you somewhere you don't want to go. FYI, I clicked on the download link for the English Mac OS X version to see if I got any kind of request for payment, and there was none.

So maybe you were trying to get Firefox from some third-party site that wanted money for the privilege of downloading from them?

Anonymous said...

Many thanx for posting the solution for "software installation disabled". I was almost desparate clicking checkboxes in Options for the n-th time....
MT

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