McAfee's Crash Happy Add-On for Firefox Lands on Blocked List
Firefox has had its share of problems over the years, the biggest (and most persistent) one being the well documented memory leak. Some suffer from it, others don't. But frequent crashes? If you happen to be experiencing those, check your add-ons, and specifically look for McAfee's SecureScan. According to Mozilla, McAfee's plug-in is known to misbehave and "causes a high volume of crashes." This behavior landed the add-on on Mozilla's 'Blocklist.'
"Users are strongly encouraged to disable the problematic add-on or plugin, but may choose to continue using it if they accept the risks described," Mozilla said in a statement. "When Mozilla becomes aware of add-ons, plugins, or other third-party software that seriously compromises Firefox security, stability, or performance and meets certain criteria, the software may be blocked from general use. For more information, please read this support article."
The blockage has sparked a discussion on McAfee's support forum and from reading the comments, it looks like only Firefox is affected. Intel, which purchased McAfee not long ago, is working on a fix. In the meantime, surf with caution if you've come to rely on the SecureScan add-on, or hop in another browser as you cruise the Web until this gets sorted out.
"Users are strongly encouraged to disable the problematic add-on or plugin, but may choose to continue using it if they accept the risks described," Mozilla said in a statement. "When Mozilla becomes aware of add-ons, plugins, or other third-party software that seriously compromises Firefox security, stability, or performance and meets certain criteria, the software may be blocked from general use. For more information, please read this support article."
The blockage has sparked a discussion on McAfee's support forum and from reading the comments, it looks like only Firefox is affected. Intel, which purchased McAfee not long ago, is working on a fix. In the meantime, surf with caution if you've come to rely on the SecureScan add-on, or hop in another browser as you cruise the Web until this gets sorted out.
