How to stop Quicktime hijacking audio/mpeg (mp3) in Firefox
This frustrated the shit out of me. My setup: Vista Business SP1, Firefox 3.0.1, Quicktime 7.5 (861).
No matter how hard I tried, besides disabling the Quicktime plugin in Vista, moving/deleting npqtplugin4.dll in the Firefox plugins folder or hex editing it, Firefox 3.0.1 would always play any mp3s I clicked in a full screen Quicktime plugin.
The about:plugins shows the following:
QuickTime Plug-in 7.5 (861)
- File name:
npqtplugin4.dll - The QuickTime Plugin allows you to view a wide variety of multimedia content in Web pages. For more information, visit the QuickTime Web site.
| MIME Type | Description | Suffixes | Enabled |
|---|---|---|---|
| video/mpeg | MPEG media | mpeg,mpg,m1s,m1v,m1a,m75, m15,mp2,mpm,mpv,mpa | Yes |
| audio/mpeg | MPEG audio | mpeg,mpg,m1s,m1a,mp2,mpm, mpa,m2a | Yes |
| audio/x-mpeg | MPEG audio | mpeg,mpg,m1s,m1a,mp2,mpm, mpa,m2a | Yes |
| video/3gpp | 3GPP media | 3gp,3gpp | Yes |
How the hell do you change one of those values to say “enabled: no”?
Changing Mime Type associations in Firefox via Options -> Applications does nothing – Quicktime always gets there first
Changing Mime Settings in Quicktime Preferences launches Vista’s Set Program Associations which is also fruitless
After much digging around, I have worked out that the following will let you handle audio/mpeg (mp3) the way you want:
- Go to about:config
- Type ‘plugin’ in the filter box (minus quotes)
- Look for ‘plugin.disable_full_page_plugin_for_types’
- If it already exists and contains a value, add ‘,audio/mpeg’ to the end of it, otherwise just change the value to ‘audio/mpeg’
- Fully close Firefox, wait a few seconds for it to clean up and die
- Launch Firefox again.. click an MP3 link.. voila! it does whatever you’ve specified in your Firefox Options -> Applications
please explain this in terms a moron like me can understand. I ABSOLUTELY HATE how Quick Time hijacks everything, but this message does not help me. Go to about: config? wtf????
Type about:config in the Firefox location bar.. I’m assuming you’re using Firefox as that is what this post is about
Hi Mark,
You’re a legend!
This one has driven me totally craAaaAAAzy.
I hate quickslime anyway plus accidentally invoking it always hung FF and usually crashed my machine.
If Mozilla is so open saucy they should make this the default setting.
But now thanks to you it’s not something I have to ever worry about again.
IOU at least a slab of beer.
Thanks Mate
John 8~)
Many thanks. Unfortunately the config line did not exist for me but I right clicked in the main about:config window and created it as a new string value, with the value set to ‘audio/mpeg’ then shutdown firefox and restarted it. Problem solved
What a shame apple see fit to hijack every file type with Quicktime and don’t provide this important user option to people in some form.
Very helpful – Thank you!
Nice one Mark, I absolutely hate the way QT hijacks the browser in this fashion. I thought it was something related to web server MIME types initially so I’m glad there is a client-side solution to it.
Excellent. Worked perfectly!
Hey, I tried this and it does not work for me. What am i doing wrong?
This did not work for me.
‘plugin.disable_full_page_plugin_for_types’ did not exist so I added it. I added the value ‘audio/mpeg’. I restarted the computer. Opened Firefox and clicked an .mp3 link but Quicktime started.
I have Vista, if that makes a difference.
Don
SUCCESS!!!!
Try the following:
WMP 11.0, Vista, Firefox 3.0.5.
Firefox Menu: Tools>Options>Applications
Under ‘Content Type’ scroll down to MPEG types
Under ‘Action’ use dropdown to select ‘Use Window Media Player’
Click [OK]
Don
Ok, I tried this… but it did not work for me. Test with mp3s here:
http://americanart.si.edu/collections/insight/podcasts/
In ‘about:config’, I set ‘plugin.disable_full_page_plugin_for_types’ to ‘audio/mpeg’ (from audio/mp4) and it was automatically changed to: ‘audio/mpeg,audio/mp4′
In ‘Tools -> Options -> Applications’ I set ALL items (especially mpeg and mp4) to ‘Always ask’ and even tried ‘Save file’ all to no avail. I even verified the settings after multiple restarts (firefox was no longer running in the task manager each time before I restart).
Running Vista Home, FF 3.0.5, QT 7.4.5 (will upgrade in a sec to 7.5.5) and try again later, after a restart. Dang… QT sucks!
Dude,
Thank you SO much. This is SO annoying!
Kudos for figuring this out.
Nice, it really worked! That option was not even there, so I added and now there is no more Quicktime.
This old problem is easily avoided on Windows by not installing QuickTime. But it came back to haunt me on a new MacBook. :/ Thanks to your article I was able to defeat the problem on the following setup:
Mac OS X 10.5.6
QuickTime 7.6.0
Firefox 3.0.8
Mind you ‘plugin.disable_full_page_plugin’ did NOT already exist in about:config, but it was easy to create a New String, call it that and set the value as ‘audio/mpeg’ and voi la. Thanks again!
Mark, thanks for an *extremely* helpful post. Now would somebody please explain to me why plugins are allowed to override Firefox’s built-in MIME preferences, and why we have to use such an obscure configuration to override the override?