Plug-ins are embedded in the browser and for us home users, this may be the most used application. And plug-ins, if you're not aware, are also as vulnerable as the browser itself. Flash is the suspected culprit in a recently reported high risk breach. And a vulnerability as simple as that could have led to an even bigger catastrophe, if not averted in time. And, little do we know the same flash plug-in is present in our system.
Firefox is not a perfect browser but this is the browser of my choosing. It is because of its plug-in checker, which is a major reason for my preference. If you are using Firefox, you can access this tool via typing in "about:plugins" on the address bar. On the second line of that plug-ins webpage, you can see "Find updates for installed plug-ins at mozilla.com/plugincheck."
From there you will be taken to Mozilla's plug-in checker website to see which plug-ins need updating. Mind you, even if you have set the automatic updates of your plug-ins in Firefox, 3rd party plug-ins need manual updates. In my system, I need updates to my Adobe Reader plug-in (see below).
This plug-in checker is certainly a very nifty gizmo. I'd love to see other browsers follow suit.
I have previously been puzzled that this plug-in checker doesn't work on my browser. As it turns out, it doesn't like to run when you are behind a proxy. So unconfigure proxy settings for Firefox before running this plug-in checker.
