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why can't I uninstall Firefox

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uninstall and helper.exe do nothing. Firefox sucks and I want to remove it completely.

uninstall and helper.exe do nothing. Firefox sucks and I want to remove it completely.

All Replies (13)

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Hello Vanya99, if there is an issue, please tell us and we will try to help.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Uninstalling_Firefox


thank you

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Uninstall from the control panel does nothing. helper.exe does nothing.

I removed 2 other mozilla applications with no problem.

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Hi Vanya99, if you go to that article and work through the steps, you will see it involves deleting various folders, not just running the uninstaller program.

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Why doesn't firefox have an uninstall program? Firefox failed to address the shockwave crashing problem, and now this. This is why I am done with firefox.

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Hi Vanya99, Firefox does include an uninstall program. As you discovered, it sometimes doesn't work. You can try refreshing it by reinstalling Firefox over itself, or you can manually clean out the installation.

Also if you have been doing a number of installs or uninstalls, you may need to restart Windows to clear the Windows Installer's queue of deferred changes (these are the changes that the installer waits until after you restart Windows to run). Sometimes they get so backed up that all installers and uninstallers start to silently fail without explanation.

With respect to Shockwave Flash crashing, I don't see that you posted about that earlier, so I'm not sure what symptoms you experienced (i.e., particular sites grind to a halt, the plugin area displays a message that it crashes, all of Firefox crashes, high memory use until Firefox becomes unresponsive, etc.). Although there is no one-size-fits-all solution, this is some standard guidance that addresses the most common issues. I'm sure you've seen some of it before, but just in case:

(1) Make sure all recorders/downloaders that interact with Flash media are as up-to-date as possible, or disable them.

(2) Disable hardware graphics acceleration in Firefox and in Flash

(A) In Firefox, un-check the box here and restart:

orange Firefox button (or Tools menu) > Options > Advanced > General > "Use hardware acceleration when available"

(B) In Flash, see this support article from Adobe: http://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/video-playback-issues.html#main_Solve_video_playback_issues

(3) Disable protected mode (Windows Vista/7/8)

See this support article from Adobe under the heading "Last Resort": Adobe Forums: How do I troubleshoot Flash Player's protected mode for Firefox?

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So I download firefox 23.0, and firefox says it is running that version. But in the uninstall list of programs, it still says 20.0.1. And it still does nothing.

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Not only did Firefox 23 not load an uninstall program, it installed this thing called Delat search, which totally screwed up Internet Explorer! Thanks a lot, Firesux.

Can I sue Mozilla? A bunch of criminals.

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Delta search

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Delta Search in NO way comes with firefox, unless you downloaded a bogus firefox, always download from mozilla.org

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i also don't understand why there is no unistall program? Where you able to find the unistall program. It seems very strange that you cannot completely uninstall Firefox without manually stripping out the files.

I am using Firefox 22 running on a Mac Os platform.

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I updated to version 23 for windows and it had an uninstall program. But when I updated to version 23, Firefox did not work at all, so I was only too happy to uninstall it. I also went through and removed any files named mozilla or firefox; also removed those items from the registry.

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Hi mace2, on Mac, there's no uninstall program because you just drag Firefox to the trash. See: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/uninstall-firefox-from-your-computer#os=mac&browser=fx24