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Mozilla Flips Kill-Switch On Skype Toolbar

Posted by Soulskill on from the take-a-time-out-until-you-can-play-nice-with-the-other-kids dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Whenever Skype is installed or updated, it automatically installs the Skype Toolbar add-on for Firefox. Unfortunately, the add-on causes serious performance problems, slowing down some operations by a factor of 300 and is one of the top causes for Firefox crashes. As a result, Mozilla has decided to 'soft-block' the add-on, effectively killing it on all Firefox installs unless the user intentionally re-enables it. Given the extreme popularity of Skype, this has ramifications for millions of users."

2 of 284 comments (clear)

  1. Grayed-out Addons... by kcbnac · · Score: 4, Informative

    Are installed not to the user profile. Exit Firefox, re-launch as an Administrator (Right-click the shortcut, select 'Run as Administrator' and accept the UAC prompt)

    You'll now find yourself able to uninstall that, and any previous versions of the Java Console that have been left behind by numerous updates to that piece of software as well.

  2. Re:do it mozilla. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    All in all, this kind of "strategy" puzzles me. What is the toolbar for anyways?

    Highlights phone numbers online, then adds a button so you can make a skype call to that number.