OT How does Firefox start (plugin-container.exe)?

  • Thread starter Thread starter John Doe
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John Doe

How does Firefox start (plugin-container.exe)?

I would like to change Firefox's command for starting that program.

Is there a way to access and edit the command Firefox uses for
starting that program?

I know this is a tough question.

Thanks.
 
John said:
How does Firefox start (plugin-container.exe)?

I would like to change Firefox's command for starting that program.

Is there a way to access and edit the command Firefox uses for
starting that program?

I know this is a tough question.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Normal programs use the Registry, or a scan with Autoruns may uncover
how it's done.

However, in the case of Firefox, it uses some older Unix/XWindows style tricks.

Try typing "about:config" in the URL bar. A list of preferences
will eventually be shown. (Note: Be careful in there. There is
no "apply" button, no "revert" capability. Make a backup of the
appropriate files, before doing something you'll regret. I
learned this the hard way, be deleting an entry in there, and
then having no template to put it back with.) This is like a
registry, but private to Firefox, and operated from the browser itself.

That's about all I can think of, other than finding the file in
question, inside one of the Firefox owned folders.

If the code in question, is launched by some other code in Firefox,
then you may have to do a content search inside each file in there,
to find it. Since Unicode string storage is used now, it won't be
stored as "plugin-container". It will be something like 0x00 p 0x00 l
0x00 u 0x00 g ...

The last time I needed to find crap like that, I had to write a short
C program to do it. My hex editor is useless for that.

I'd play along, but I doubt my setup matches yours. That file is
not on my C: drive right now. I'll have to take a look at my laptop
(not running at the moment), and see if it's on there...

HTH,
Paul
 
Paul said:
John Doe wrote:
Click to expand...
Normal programs use the Registry, or a scan with Autoruns may
uncover how it's done.

However, in the case of Firefox, it uses some older
Unix/XWindows style tricks.

Try typing "about:config" in the URL bar. A list of preferences
will eventually be shown. (Note: Be careful in there. There is
no "apply" button, no "revert" capability. Make a backup of the
appropriate files, before doing something you'll regret. I
learned this the hard way, be deleting an entry in there, and
then having no template to put it back with.) This is like a
registry, but private to Firefox, and operated from the browser
itself.
Click to expand...

That's what keeping a copy of Windows is for. Troubleshooting for
the lazy. You can do anything you feel like doing, and if
something goes wrong you just put it back the way it was.
That's about all I can think of, other than finding the file in
question, inside one of the Firefox owned folders.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's there.

As explained recently... I have two Internet connections active in
Windows XP. A program can be forced to use one or the other with a
utility called "ForceBindIP". It is easy to use and so far it
works. The sports streaming website called WatchESPN requires you
to have a participating ISP, like AT&T or Time Warner. I wanted to
set that plugin-container Firefox subprogram to use AT&T DSL so
that it would not suck bandwidth from my Clear wireless
connection, but I did want Firefox itself to use the higher
bandwidth Clear wireless connection. Not knowing how to force
plugin-container to use DSL, I had to set Firefox itself to DSL.
Strangely, after Firefox connected to WatchESPN through DSL,
WatchESPN began using the wireless connection for the
plugin-container streaming media part (the reverse of what I
want). That is slightly amusing, that WatchESPN doesn't know or
care.

If plugin-container cannot be set to use DSL, the wireless
connection must be disabled in order to force the streaming media
through DSL. I need to get significant use out of the wireless
Internet thing to justify the additional cost. Being able to set
some Windows programs to use a higher-bandwidth connection (like
for browsing) might be good enough. And the continuous bandwidth
sucking applications will be left to the DSL. That's the plan.
If the code in question, is launched by some other code in
Firefox, then you may have to do a content search inside each
file in there, to find it. Since Unicode string storage is used
now, it won't be stored as "plugin-container". It will be
something like 0x00 p 0x00 l 0x00 u 0x00 g ...

The last time I needed to find crap like that, I had to write a
short C program to do it. My hex editor is useless for that.

I'd play along, but I doubt my setup matches yours. That file is
not on my C: drive right now. I'll have to take a look at my
laptop (not running at the moment), and see if it's on there...
Click to expand...

"C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\plugin-container.exe"

It is an Adobe flash player thing. I think it has something to do
with how Firefox is trying to keep a lid on it.
--
 
John said:
How does Firefox start (plugin-container.exe)?

I would like to change Firefox's command for starting that program.

Is there a way to access and edit the command Firefox uses for
starting that program?

I know this is a tough question.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

OK, copied my laptop over to the desktop machine, and
when analysed, I find xul.dll has plugin-container.exe
as a string inside it. The nearest string before that
mentions geckoChildProcessHost. (No Unicode was involved,
so it only took a few seconds to find it.)

XUL is the engine Firefox uses.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xul

"The Mozilla Gecko layout engine provides an implementation
of XUL used in the Firefox browser."

*******

I suppose you could try replacing plugin-container.exe with
a script of some sort, or a shortcut .lnk, to change the
launch arguments, but what are the odds that'll work ?
Doing that will probably bust something. Like, it might
break the parent to child relationship in some way.

It's possible you can get source code for Firefox, but I
bet the build process will cause hair loss. I remember the
first browser I built, it cost me a solid week of work, because
there were a gazillion support libraries to build first. And
I bet the tools they use, aren't easy either.

HTH,
Paul
 
Paul said:
OK, copied my laptop over to the desktop machine, and when
analysed, I find xul.dll has plugin-container.exe as a string
inside it. The nearest string before that mentions
geckoChildProcessHost. (No Unicode was involved, so it only took
a few seconds to find it.)
Click to expand...
I suppose you could try replacing plugin-container.exe with a
script of some sort, or a shortcut .lnk, to change the launch
arguments, but what are the odds that'll work ? Doing that will
probably bust something. Like, it might break the parent to
child relationship in some way.
Click to expand...

That looks like "the writing on the wall". Workaround time.

I will try using Internet Explorer to access WatchESPN, and see
how that goes. I don't use IE for browsing, so it might work as
long as IE does not hand off the flash player streaming media to
some other process that then switches to the wireless connection
(like what happens in Firefox). That might be an easy workaround.
I'll try making a voice-activated shortcut to go directly to
WatchESPN in IE. Usually, the Mozilla fan group knows about that
Firefox config thing, but they are speechless so far.

Thanks.
 
I will try using Internet Explorer to access WatchESPN, and see
how that goes
Click to expand...

As one might have guessed... It's worse. It does not just hand off
the streaming media to the wireless provider, apparently IE alerts
WatchESPN to that fact (or somehow lets it know, whatever), so the
stream won't even start.
 
John said:
That's what keeping a copy of Windows is for. Troubleshooting for
the lazy. You can do anything you feel like doing, and if
something goes wrong you just put it back the way it was.


Yeah, it's there.

As explained recently... I have two Internet connections active in
Windows XP. A program can be forced to use one or the other with a
utility called "ForceBindIP". It is easy to use and so far it
works. The sports streaming website called WatchESPN requires you
to have a participating ISP, like AT&T or Time Warner. I wanted to
set that plugin-container Firefox subprogram to use AT&T DSL so
that it would not suck bandwidth from my Clear wireless
connection, but I did want Firefox itself to use the higher
bandwidth Clear wireless connection. Not knowing how to force
plugin-container to use DSL, I had to set Firefox itself to DSL.
Strangely, after Firefox connected to WatchESPN through DSL,
WatchESPN began using the wireless connection for the
plugin-container streaming media part (the reverse of what I
want). That is slightly amusing, that WatchESPN doesn't know or
care.

If plugin-container cannot be set to use DSL, the wireless
connection must be disabled in order to force the streaming media
through DSL. I need to get significant use out of the wireless
Internet thing to justify the additional cost. Being able to set
some Windows programs to use a higher-bandwidth connection (like
for browsing) might be good enough. And the continuous bandwidth
sucking applications will be left to the DSL. That's the plan.


"C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\plugin-container.exe"

It is an Adobe flash player thing. I think it has something to do
with how Firefox is trying to keep a lid on it.
Click to expand...

When you have multiple network adapters, there is some means of
controlling the load balance between interfaces. (By assigning
a "metric" or cost factor.) I doubt this is going to help you,
as when you set up a connection (like the streaming connection
to ESPN), I don't think the stream has to "stay" on the interface
it started on. But this is another idea to investigate, in case
there's some way of harnessing this to get the desired result.

http://smallvoid.com/article/network-gateway-metric.html

Paul
 
John said:
That's what keeping a copy of Windows is for. Troubleshooting for
the lazy. You can do anything you feel like doing, and if
something goes wrong you just put it back the way it was.


Yeah, it's there.

As explained recently... I have two Internet connections active in
Windows XP. A program can be forced to use one or the other with a
utility called "ForceBindIP". It is easy to use and so far it
works. The sports streaming website called WatchESPN requires you
to have a participating ISP, like AT&T or Time Warner. I wanted to
set that plugin-container Firefox subprogram to use AT&T DSL so
that it would not suck bandwidth from my Clear wireless
connection, but I did want Firefox itself to use the higher
bandwidth Clear wireless connection. Not knowing how to force
plugin-container to use DSL, I had to set Firefox itself to DSL.
Strangely, after Firefox connected to WatchESPN through DSL,
WatchESPN began using the wireless connection for the
plugin-container streaming media part (the reverse of what I
want). That is slightly amusing, that WatchESPN doesn't know or
care.

If plugin-container cannot be set to use DSL, the wireless
connection must be disabled in order to force the streaming media
through DSL. I need to get significant use out of the wireless
Internet thing to justify the additional cost. Being able to set
some Windows programs to use a higher-bandwidth connection (like
for browsing) might be good enough. And the continuous bandwidth
sucking applications will be left to the DSL. That's the plan.


"C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\plugin-container.exe"

It is an Adobe flash player thing. I think it has something to do
with how Firefox is trying to keep a lid on it.
Click to expand...

<repost - first one didn't show up>

When you have multiple network adapters, there is some means of
controlling the load balance between interfaces. (By assigning
a "metric" or cost factor.) I doubt this is going to help you,
as when you set up a connection (like the streaming connection
to ESPN), I don't think the stream has to "stay" on the interface
it started on. But this is another idea to investigate, in case
there's some way of harnessing this to get the desired result.

http://smallvoid.com/article/network-gateway-metric.html

Paul
 
Paul said:
When you have multiple network adapters, there is some means of
controlling the load balance between interfaces.
Click to expand...

Doing that on a program by program basis is appropriate here.
(By assigning a "metric" or cost factor.) I doubt this is going
to help you, as when you set up a connection (like the streaming
connection to ESPN), I don't think the stream has to "stay" on
the interface it started on.
Click to expand...

I understand that possibility, but (from what I can see) it might
be going by process here. The utility ForceBindIP might just need
to be installed in the process that does the downloading.
Apparently it keeps itself in the program/process. I just started
Firefox and started downloading a large file, and the download
stayed on the DSL connection. I think the problem here is when
Firefox gives the streaming media task to (plugin-container.exe).

Using Internet Explorer, I don't see any subprocess (should check
using a utility), but it seems to do similar. I'm sure it uses
flash player. Maybe flash player itself and not plugin-container
is abandoning the DSL connection.

In the worst case, I can disable the wireless connection when
doing WatchESPN. Uhg. Thanks. Later.
 
However, in the case of Firefox, it uses some older Unix/XWindows style tricks.

Try typing "about:config" in the URL bar. A list of preferences
will eventually be shown. (Note: Be careful in there. There is
no "apply" button, no "revert" capability. Make a backup of the
appropriate files, before doing something you'll regret. I
learned this the hard way, be deleting an entry in there, and
then having no template to put it back with.) This is like a
registry, but private to Firefox, and operated from the browser itself.
Click to expand...

Cool. My latest Firefox gives you a warning that you can void the
application warranty by messing up the values. How do you change the
values? Out of curiosity, not that I intend to do it.

RL
 
RayLopez99 said:
Cool. My latest Firefox gives you a warning that you can void the
application warranty by messing up the values. How do you change the
values? Out of curiosity, not that I intend to do it.

RL
Click to expand...

http://kb.mozillazine.org/About:config

My recommendation, is to not delete any entries. If you want
to delete an entry, take a screenshot of the entry in place, so you
can refer to the picture later.

It's either that, or use a backup strategy instead.

Paul
 
Apparently ForceBindIP keeps itself in the program/process.

Upon further testing, it does a good job of that, forcing Firefox to
use the specified connection.
 
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