Left-overs: Firefox Extensions

Over the years, I've added and removed quite a few Firefox extensions. I just noticed on my Firefox "about:config" page that there are lots of left-over line items for extensions I no longer have.

Is it safe to simply delete these line-items, or is there a better way to cleanup/remove them?

 

You can remove them manually from prefs.js using a simple text editor. Make a backup first, just in case.

 

There's Preferences Cleaner but I'm not sure if it still works.

http://www.ghacks.net/2011/06/01/fi...-remove-add-on-preferences-on-uninstallation/

On the other hand, you can always start afresh with a new profile and install your chosen add-ons. This way - you wouldn't have 'left-overs'.

 

The standard way of cleaning out those junk lines used to be to highlight each one in turn and use the "reset" option on each, which converted its value to a blank string. Then restart Firefox and (supposedly) those lines will be deleted. A royal pita if the extension usea dozens of lines, since about:config is where most of them save configuration options, just like win.ini way back when.

I agree, it's a shame that removing an extension or other plug-in doesn't seem to touch anything in about:config; wish Mozilla would make that part of their testing routine when approving new (or updated) extensions.

 

there is also ecleaner
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ecleaner/

 

Preferences Cleaner extension still works fine, I prefer it compared to ECleaner because it's more thorough and have it set to let it delete an extension's preferences automatically. Sometimes though I have to go into *loose preferences* and delete there the few that it didn't catch. Caution is the word to use when in loose preferences. If in doubt, make a backup which the extension can do that as well.

The extension has been updated since its inception.

 

This is still my preferred method after trying out the two cleaners previously mentioned. Also don't forget to clean up the abandoned files and folders left behind in your profile folder.