Fix

Remove Norton IPS And Toolbar Extensions From Firefox

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10:30AM June 23, 2009 | Angus Kidman

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Norton’s security products are much less intrusive than they used to be, but still insist on adding extensions to Firefox without asking (bad) that don’t include an uninstall option (worse). Here’s how to ditch them.

There’s a Disable option on the Firefox Add-ons menu for the Norton crapware, but it’s neater to get rid of the IPS and Toolbar extensions altogether. That involves a similar series of steps to our previously discussed method for dumping Skype’s equally objectionable Firefox extension. Here’s what to do:

  1. Disable the Norton extensions (from Tools –> Add-ons –> Extensions).
  2. Close Firefox.
  3. Use Windows Explorer (or your preferred alternative) to navigate to C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\extensions (adjust if you’ve installed Firefox somewhere else).
  4. You should see two files called {7BA52691-1876-45ce-9EE6-54BCB3B04BBC} and {8545daff-ad1e-493f-a37e-eed1ac79682b}. Delete them both (this may require a number of User Account Control confirmations).
  5. Restart Firefox and Norton’s nuisances should be gone for good.

Comments

  • Kevn

    June 23, 2009 at 5:20 PM

    Do I want to get rid of them? Do they do anything other than identity safe?

    • NNN

      July 6, 2009 at 1:46 AM

      I would not get rid of them. Do so at your own risk. Norton IPS is the intrusion prevention system. It stops drive by downloads and similar web based threats.

    • MrM

      August 10, 2009 at 4:33 AM

      If you use Norton Identity Safe for logging into for example banking websites you definitely don’t want to disable this, otherwise you’ll have to actually type in passwords which can leave you vulnerable to keyloggers.

  • Crisoco4466

    July 9, 2009 at 9:29 AM

    I thought this was an excellent description. Clear and precise. Worked beautifully except that rebooting the computer re-established the two files again.
    Actually this was my last resort as I had already tried deleting the toolbar coFFPlgn.dll file which is related to {7BA52691-1876-45ce-9EE6-54BCB3B04BBC} That was also impossible because the file is set to read only and cannot be altered in any way, even using Unlocker.
    Norton has got it well covered in Firefox 3.5!
    It is a great pity because both these AddOns are disabled automatically by Mozilla in Firefox version 3.5 as being incompatible.
    The only way round this problem is to wait another month for Symantec to bring out a hotfix for this and then disable them yet again when they have applied it via LiveUpdate.
    All this would not have been necessary had Symantec worked more closely with Mozilla during the beta stage of this version. It would also have helped if they could have provided an uninstall facility for each AddOn.

  • Ranjan Seetharama

    October 19, 2009 at 4:55 AM

    Amazing, I was baffled for so long with the need to delete the norton add on to firefox. It blocked every attachment that i wanted to download from Yahoo.
    Please post more such useful tips. This was very helpful.

    Ranjan

  • Wantless

    December 19, 2009 at 12:57 PM

    If you have the reboot problem just delete them than make to empty files and make them read-only so can’t replace than every boot. Make sure they have no extension or it will not work.

  • Eikelein

    May 7, 2011 at 5:54 AM

    NOT true for Firefox version 4.0.1!

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