Firefox browser is running slow? Too many processes when you use Firefox? If yes, you may need to get rid of Firefox plugin-container.exe process. You can easily do that by following my step by step guide to Stop Firefox Plugin-Container Process. Still no luck? Probably you are using Firefox 4. In that case, you need to follow some different step! In fact, many users asked me how to stop plugin-container.exe process in Firefox 4. This article is for those who wants to stop plugin-container process in Firefox version 4.
Steps to Remove or Stop Plugin-container Process in Firefox 4:
- Enter about:config in the Firefox address bar.
- Ignore the warning and go ahead by pressing “I’ll be careful, I promise!” button.
- Enter dom.ipc.plugins.enabled in the Filter field.
- One preference will appear. Change it’s value from true to false.
- Right click in the white space below Preferences Name.
- From the menu select Boolean under New.
- Enter new Boolean Value as dom.ipc.plugins.enabled.npctrl.dll
- Then enter the boolean value as false.
- Repeat the step from Step 5 to add the following preferences: dom.ipc.plugins.enabled.npqtplugin.dll, dom.ipc.plugins.enabled.npswf32.dll and dom.ipc.plugins.enabled.nptest.dll
- Look at the screenshot. Once all preferences are set, restart Firefox. Browse Internet as usual. Now you should see the difference!
Copy the 4 preferences from here:
dom.ipc.plugins.enabled.npctrl.dll
dom.ipc.plugins.enabled.npqtplugin.dll
dom.ipc.plugins.enabled.npswf32.dll
dom.ipc.plugins.enabled.nptest.dll
This fix worked for me. I hope it will also help you stop or get rid of plugin-container.exe in Firefox 4. Did it worked? Don’t forget to leave a reply!
Update:
Why I wrote about Plugin-container? First, let me clear you that it is not a Firefox speed improvement hack. This simple fix takes care of a Firefox related process called Plugin-container.exe. This process was supposed to protect you from Firefox crashes. But lots of people find it useless, as it consumes a lot of memory (when more than one plugins run in separate plugin-container process) and often leads to a frozen browser. You can free a good amount of memory by getting rid of Plugin-container.exe. If you are running a rig with huge amount of memory, ignore this. This fix may help those who have a slower or low memory computer.
I published this to help Firefox users (Windows and Linux). If you feel like it is not for you, just ignore it.
Update:
Some users complained that Firefox is consuming too much memory. Yes, it is. Firefox 4 has memory leak problems. I will try to write an article explaining how to reduce excessive memory usage on Firefox. Stay tuned!
This works on Firefox 5 too! If you want to disable plugin-container in Firefox 5, follow the steps above.
Thank you! Simple and effective!
Thanks!
It’s running better after taking your advise. I appreciate that you’ve made this information available.
Hi guys! How do you stop plug-in container.exe in Firefox 5?
Thanks! it works too in firefox 6
Technogadge,
Well Doggies !!! If ya’ll ain’t as sweet as cold watermelon on a hot day ! That seems to have taken care off the little plugin boogar ! I can’t thank ya’ll enough! I wish I could give ya a big ol’ slug off my little brown jug. So, here’s to you, Technogadge !
Thanks a whole whoppin’ heap !
LuLu
The Hillbilly
This fix is absolutely wonderful… I hope it does not have any side effects!!
Thank you! Simple and Very useful !…
Thanks for making an entry for FF4
Hey that’s a great tip! It solved all my troubles. No Plugin-Container.exe running with Firefox 4. Now enjoying faster browsing. Thanks a lot.
Worked Like A Charm!
Thanks for leaving your comments. I am glad that you people found it useful. Enjoy web browsing with Firefox!
After a hard searching for the problem to the constant crash when flash player was activated in Mozilla your solution finally correct it. Thanks from Porto/Portugal.
100% FIX!!!!!!!!!
Thanks a lot.
Thanks! Easy fix and it’s like I have a new browser.
Brilliant! Absolutely amazing! This is perfect!
Nice one Sandy!
Apart for FF running slow generally – it used to almost grind to a halt when writing anything in Facebook. It was so painful – AAARRGGHH!
But now… well – I’m going to blog/Twitter and FB your page here! :O)
This is a brilliant fix and should be shared with the world!
Paul
Paul,
Thanks for your comment. And also thanks for sharing the info on your blog.
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Thank you for this information, as I was looking for reason why Firefox 4 keeps crashing with Adobe Acrobat 10 and it’s driving me crazy. Excuse my ignorance, but before I go ahead and implement your advice, can you please clarify something – I am not sure if I do this, what happens to the plugins, will they work when I need them or are they disabled, I really don’t understand how it works. Thank you.
Don’t worry. Those plugins will work. This fix prevents plugin-container.exe process. All those plugins will run normally within Firefox and not in separate processes.
Wow !
It works like a charm !
When I installed FF4, a while ago, I wondered what was this plugin-container…
today made a search on it and found your explaination and solution !
Since then I configured it…
and FX is really much faster…
Thanks a lot !
I suggest you contact Mozilla and tell them to have that fix on their plugin page, it deserves it
thank you!
also, stopped a problem with plugin-container.exe locking my flashlog.txt file so it couldn’t be cleared.
Just wanted to say thank you for saving my day! It works. But why only a few comments? Only these 14-15 people found it useful? I don’t think so. But there are some people who follows only the mass opinion. C’mon visitors. Leave your comments and help others.
Your screenshot shows 4 entries but your directions create 5 entries. The extra entry not displayed in your screen shot is called
“dom.ipc.plugins.enabled.nptest.dll”
Is this entry supposed to be added making 5 instead of the 4 entries?…. and what is the “nptest.dll” ? Thanks for all your efforts. Anne
Hi,
Thanks for your reply. I took the screenshot while adding the last preference so that users can see the right click options. You need to add 4 preferences manually. The first one (dom.ipc.plugins.enabled) is already there and all you need to do is change it’s value from true to false.
For your information:
nptest.dll is related to Netscape Plugin Application Programming Interface (NPAPI) test plugin
and the others:
npctrl.dll is related to Microsoft Silverlight
npqtplugin.dll is related to Apple QuickTime
npswf32.dll is related to Adobe Flash
Hope this helps.
Installed FireFox 4 a day or two ago. Today it hung – I could hear noise from PC tower – Task Manager showed plugin-container.exe process using 50-70% of CPU. Your directions didn’t play out exactly for me. All 5 preferences showed up once I typed the first one into the filter space. dom.ipc.plugins.enabled was already false; the other four were true. One at a time I selected each of the other 4, right-clicked in the white space, then clicked on TOGGLE in the drop-down menu to change them from true to false. Seems to have worked. Thanks for the help.
Thanks for your efforts to help users everywhere! I came here because my Firefox seemed to hang on Flash games my kids use. It would lock the whole computer and the screen would take on a white veil. I uninstalled Firefox 3.6 and upgraded to 4. Also the same for Flash. However, still the same problem.
Your solution sounds interesting, and I hope it works. Won’t know until the kids try to bring Firefox to its knees!
works on firefox 4.0 final
I was getting super pissed over the number of crashes I have been getting since switching to FF 4.0. I saw your guide, tried it, and it worked, no more crashes and I can finally get back to loving FF.
WOW thank you!
worked great for me in 4.0
Thanks man !!
I had very confused of plugin-container.exe appears everytime when I was trying to login my e-mail account, not other time. I have doubt that it is a Virus. So I search Google & found your blog solution here.
Great, now problem is solved.
.
I don’t have those on my FireFox4 ….
Copy the 4 preferences from here:
dom.ipc.plugins.enabled.npctrl.dll
dom.ipc.plugins.enabled.npqtplugin.dll
dom.ipc.plugins.enabled.npswf32.dll
dom.ipc.plugins.enabled.nptest.dll
You don’t have them. Because those are actually not present in FF4. That’s why you need to copy and add them one by one manually. Please follow the instructions carefully and add those preferences.
Are there any downsides to permanently disabling this?
No downsides. You can safely disable it.
…I’ve always gotten used to laggy vids, slow loading and other crap, but getting rid of that pesky plugin-thingy was just AWESOME!
Not only did it reduce memory/CPU consumption greatly, it also got my browser nice and fast
Thanks a bundle. Serious respects and appreciation.
Thank you this was driving me crazy, it WORKED!
Thanks for this excellent working step by step instructions. Now my PC running faster
Thx, very nice tweak.
FF4 is now much faster
and I got my memory back
It was driving me crazy aswell
one problem for me, dom.ipc.plugins.enabled is not coming up, i get dom.ipc.plugins.enabled.i386 but not with out the letter and numbers at the end. any ideas? thanks.
You are using Mac. Right? That’s why the difference. On Mac, before you disable it, check if you are running FF4 in 64-bit mode. If you are running it in 64-bit mode, switch to 32-bit mode. To do that exit Firefox. Control-click the Firefox.app icon. Then select “Get Info” and check the box “Open in 32-bit mode”. Now try setting the preference values false.
Worked fine for me.
obrigado power
valeu mesmo , essa bosta de plugincontaminador.exe , estava matando o pc
a little tricky BUT WORKS GREAT THAXXXX
It worked, however…
my greasemonkey scripts for facebook are now not working.
is it suppose to affect them?
I don’t think that it will affect other scripts. Still, I will give a look. Thanks.
My Greasemonkey scripts are working.
Thank you so much, it work well. Very effective!
How can we erase a value we put at about:config? If a mistake is made?
thank youu!! it works great
Thanks so much. It was very easy to fix, with your instructions! FF4 was SO slow, before the fix, and I thought it was just my old laptop. You put a smile on my face today. Thank you for that.
has worked great except for now i get firefox crashes on facebook apps. i uunderstand that the plug-in container was to keep it from that but all in all VERY HAPPY!! runs much better overall.
Excellent, simple and effective.
Works well.
Thanks, Technogadge!
Not working. Ram gets full slowlier but in the end it ends up in a mess like always. I have over 700.000k with no addon and a fresh, empty profile. FF is quit a pain in da ass
I just followed your instructions to stop the plugin-container process in Firefox4, but now firefox.exe is taking up just as much CPU as plugin-container.exe was before. Any idea what I could try to fix this? I have about 10 tabs open in my browser window and am using Windows XP. Thanks.
Worked for me.
Thank you so much
Thanks, I don’t remember having a problem with FF3.6+, but FF4 has had a cpu problem for me. Now, with multiple windows and multiple tabs in each, the cpu is quiet when all is minimized.
You mentioned an upcoming article about memory leaks. Has that happened?
I got rid of plugin-contaIner, but my firefox is not using an average of 90% CPU… mostly between 98% and 84%.
I look forward to your posting a fix for this.
I know I could use other browsers, but I hate all of them. When firefox runs well, it is golden. None of the others seems secure and all of them are clunky to work with.
Thanks for this fix! Great job on the instructions!
Didi
it happens win i play vidios so i keep firfox runnin inna constant ‘private browsin’ state n close window after vid n re-open it
THank you a great deal Sandy. no other browser compares2firefox,i was so down when it kept closing n freezing.
Thanks so much for the fix. Really too bad Mozilla screwed this up so badly; I had to stop recommending Firefox to everyone, simply because I don’t want to wind up having to make trips to all their computers to fix this. I’ll use it; but for everyone else, by by Firefox, hello Chrome. The average person isn’t going to fix this themselves. They’ll just move on to another program. Sad, Firefox used to be so good. Now it’s just another broken program that sucks.
FF4 is back to it’s old speed. Thanks for keeping me from going to another browser. Now if Mozilla will fix their fix, we can all be happy little FFxes again.
it worked for me too, no noise now/running now, I am so glad I came through this.
that worked..tnx a ton..
Same happened to me with FF4 and today when I downloaded FF5 I was hoping that this problem would be fixed. However, it persisted. Followed your FF4 instructions for FF5 and it’s now working beautifully. Thanks very much!
True, it’s working, but, now , if dom.ipc.plugins.enabled.npswf32.dll is set to false, i can’t watch vimeo videos on firefox 5.
If i set to: true, i can watch the videos from vimeo and other sites witch are using moogaloop player, but then the plug in container is active and again usig a lot of RAM and CPU.
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It worked! Thanks so much.
internet speed is great but video sites like you tube arent loading well at all, any suggestions?
You just tooooooo AWESOME …dude
Thanks a lot man !!!!
Work great even for FF5. Keep up the good work. You are a CREDIT to Technology!
wow, thanks a lot!! recently i updated FF to
FF 5.0.1, n “u kno what” happened to me, this still worked for tht too , ty alot ^_^
Thanks very much u r genius
i temporarily disabled this and can’t play my Facebook games. So I assume if I perm. disable it, same will happen?
It helped alot. Big improvment
Thanks
Worked great. Browser reloaded a lot quicker and web pages load faster too. Many thanks.
OK, I was skeptical after reading all the glowing reports, but thought it would be worth a try anyway. All I can say is “WOW!”. If there were a Nobel prize for making life easier, I would certainly vote for you. I can’t thank you enough. YOU ROCK!
I made a mistake,the last preference name dom.ipc.plugins.enabled.nptest.dll,has a string type instead of boolean.I can’t correct this please help.Thank you in advance.
In case of a mistake simply right click on the option and select ‘Reset’ from the menu.
I tried this in Firefox 6, but it seems the same as before. Actually now it’s slower than before and it takes a while for firefox to switch to another tab after I clicked it. The plugin container is gone, but firefox seems to be taking up most of the CPU whenever I’m playing a flash video (not youtube videos though, they seem to work fine). Maybe I should just try it in firefox 4 huh XD Thanks though.
Worked good in FF6. thanks for the help.
Than you so much this works still even with Firefox 7 Beta and it sped it up so much now it almost never crashes!
Hey, I used it but now my FF6 keeps on crashing, any possible solution for that?
This Your help tutorial don’t help for problem with crashing firefox 6.2 with Adobe Flash Player 10.
Please help!
For the folks asking about FF 6 and above, I use 6.0.2 and simply toggled the “dom.ipc.plugins.enabled” preference to “false.” It was set to “true” before I changed it. This has corrected the slow down problem for me. Hope it helps.
Everything I did, everything dom.ipc.plugins.enabled is set to false and does not help. I have FF 6.0.2 and Adobe Flash Player 10.3
Can You help me, please!?
Hi! Thank you ! This solution was perfect. My question is related to IE 8. My roommate still uses IE and has the same problem. Uses too much ram. Is there a solution for Internet Explorer 8?
Yes, change to Firefox
Thank you!!!
I applied this fix to Mozilla/Aurora V9.0a2.
After about an hour of browsing, NO freezes.
Prior to this fix, Aurora froze about every 3 to 5 minutes and stay frozen for 30 seconds to a minute.
Thank you again. Too bad Mozilla couldn’t figure this out.
Well…crap..
It just froze on me. Oh well…it was a good try….
It works fine. Thanxs for your help.
Thanx man. you saved my day. i was even thinking of reinstalling ubuntu but now i am good.
This works on Firefox 8 too!
tried it on FF8, seemed to work out, but then I got one of those long freezes while loading twitter, couldn’t use the computer for over a minute.
I have FireFox 8 and this is working well -thank you, your instructions are clear and easy to folow.
heyyyyy thnq sooooo much, it worked for me
This works, it makes the browser faster.
Thanks
Issue not resolved on Ubuntu 11.04 32 bit with FF 5.
I completeed the instructions and this is how my FF configuration looks like:
http://imm.io/fF4m
But even after several restarts, FireFox keeps blanking out and freezes:
http://imm.io/fF4P
Could you please tell me if my issue would be caused by the Container or shall I further look for it somewhere else?
Wonderful, quick fix that works. I’ve noticed the plug-in container.exe for sometime but they’ve never been a problem until today when fast as I cleared them with the task manager, they came back. Couldn’t run anything, I thought it was my Trusteer Rapport that my online bank recommends but I think I may have been wrong.
Do I still need the plugin-container.exe for FF 11.0+?
It is still there in Firefox 11. If you face any problem with plugin-container.exe, you can disable it. No security, privacy or stability issues involved here. Also, you can revert back anytime to original FF settings.
For that, you can simply toggle the value for dom.ipc.plugins.enabled (it is already there, no need to enter a new boolean) to False.
Thanks a heap…worked like a charm