Enable Click-to-Play Plugins in Firefox 14 and Set Site-Specific Permissions for Opt-in plugins

We’ve covered the Beta release of Firefox 14 and now we’re nearer to Firefox 14 final release, so Firefox 14 comes with HTTPS Google search by default, site-identity block got an update which prevents certain sites with padlock favicon from spoofing users as secured sites, users will see more of globe favicon for regular sites now with this change, URL Autocomplete has been finally enabled in this releases which fills URLs automatically as you type and another significant feature to consider in this release is click-to-play plugins (not enabled by default), though this feature has been set for Firefox 16 you can still activate plugins on demand by enabling this feature in Firefox 14.

Websites on the web are now filled with flash and other content served by plugins like Java, Silverlight etc., these plugins are vulnerable to hackers and particularly Flash consumes more system resources, Mozilla now allows users on Firefox 14 build to activate click-to-play feature which makes users to add extra click to play the content. Mozilla also planning to apply click to play feature remotely for users having outdated plugins.

Enabling click-to-play for Firefox

1.Type about:config in address bar and proceed further by agreeing to the warning,

2. Now find preference “plugins.click_to_play” and double click on it to set its value to true.

Now for e.g if you visit YouTube site and tried to play any video, it won’t be played instead you get “click here to activate plugins” message as below in the screenshot.

Whitelisting sites to play plugin content automatically with site-specific permissions

If you’re on a page where plugin content was blocked, click on blue button prior to site-identity block, a dialog will be shown with message “ would you like to activate the plugins on this site” which offers the following options

• always activate plugins for this site
• never activate plugins for this site
• Not Now

by selecting “always activate plugins for this site” you can whitelist that site, for example here it is YouTube to play flash videos automatically. You can select any one from other two options also.

After whitelisting YouTube , if you now click on YouTube site favicon next to domain, a dialog will be shown click on more information,  select permissions tab and scroll down to the bottom here you can notice “activate plugins” is set as “allow” for that YouTube. This way you can whitelist sites you trust and visit regularly.