Plug-In Check Warns About Out-Of-Date Firefox Plug-Ins

Mozilla is getting serious about plug-ins. After adding a Flash version checker to the “What’s New” page seen after updates, the Firefox maker is trying a Plug-In Check that warns when Flash, Acrobat, QuickTime or other plug-ins aren’t quite kosher.

It’s in the testing phase right now, and Mozilla notes on its development blog that plug-ins that don’t follow its guidelines for reporting minor version changes—Adobe Acrobat, Windows Media Player and RealPlayer, among them—will come back as needing updates, even if they’re right up to date.

It’s a feature that might eventually make its way onto the “What’s New” page, and Mozilla is asking for Firefox users on all platforms to give it a go on their test server and report back. If nothing else, it’s worth a check to see if a long-forgotten media handler is potentially exposing your browser to security holes.

Plug-In Check [Mozilla Trunk via Mozilla Links]