Firefox, like any other web browser, offers options to disable specific plugins or features in the browser settings.
It is for instance possible to disable plugins like Flash or Java, scripting languages like JavaScript or the loading of images. Problem is, it is not very comfortable to make those changes in the browser, especially so if you need to disable and enable certain features on a regular basis.
To disable Flash, you would have to enter about:addons in the address bar and wait for the add-on manager to load. You then had to switch to the plugins listing, locate Adobe Flash Player there and click on the enable or disable button.
JavaScript and the loading of images on the other hand are not found there. For that you would have to open the Firefox options to make the changes. [Update: Mozilla removed those from the options in recent versions of Firefox]
Way more comfortable than that is to use a browser extension like QuickJava which adds those capabilities directly to the main Firefox interface.
The QuickJava extension adds six buttons to the Firefox status bar (or another location depending on the version that you are using). A click on a button disables or enables the following features or plugins in the browser:
- JavaScript
- Java
- Adobe Flash
- Microsoft Silverlight
- Images
- Css
Enabled features are displayed in blue, disabled ones in red which makes the distinction easier. A right-click on a button and the selection of options opens a configuration menu. You can use the menu to hide buttons so that they are not displayed in the browser’s front end. This is handy if you only need quick access to some buttons instead of all of them.
You can use the options to add a seventh button to the status bar. The Proxy server button is hidden by default, and you need to enable it in the options to quickly turn on or off proxy server support in Firefox.
That’s all for now that you can do in the extension’s options. You can middle-click any of the status bar icons of the extension to reverse all settings. This way you can turn everything off if everything is turned on and vice verse.
QuickJava can be installed directly from the official Mozilla Firefox add-on repository. It is compatible with all versions of Firefox from 4 onwards.