Firefox users, never EVER install NewsMonster !
Wednesday, September 21st, 2005 -- BuzzurroThe reading of this post is reserved to geeks who use Firefox. The others may skip it.
NewsMonster is supposed to be sort of a Firefox extension that should act as a RSS reader.
Do you want my advice ? NEVER EVER install it !
Good reasons for not installing it:
- the uninstall procedure DOESN’T WORK. How would you want to install a thing you cannot uninstall ?
- After the installation, a wide sidebar appears on the right, approximately 30% the size of the window, NOT sizeable, not shrinkable.
- some of the menu items added by NewsMonster seem not to work (especially the “NewsMonster Preferences” menu item, from which, by the way, you are supposed to uninstall the product…)
- unlike other Firefox extensions, NewsMonster is not listed among the other installed extensions (via the “Tools | Extensions” menu item)
- the OPML import function doesn’t work. I tried to import my RSS feeds in OPML format, and it imported only one of them.
I successfully uninstalled it by doing the following tasks:
- closed Firefox
- deleted the c:\newsmonster folder
- under “c:\program files\Mozilla Firefox\chrome”, I deleted “newsmonster.jar”
- under “c:\program files\Mozilla Firefox\components”, I deleted a group of files (*.jar, *.js) last modified at 10/23/2003, 3:13 AM
- under “c:\program files\Mozilla Firefox\ subdirectories, edited every recently changed *.rdf file, trying either to delete xml tags containing the “newsmonster” string, or turning them into comments, i.e. changing tags like
<RDF:li>…newsmonster…</RDF:li>
into
<!–RDF:li>…newsmonster…</RDF:li–>
Strangely, it worked. Once reopening Firefox, the NewsMonster disappeared, and everything else seemed to work fine.
I’d not generally advice to do what I did for erasing NewsMonster. Don’t do this at home. You might get burned.
Instead, I’d suggest to uninstall Firefox and reinstall it.
If you want a fairly good RSS reader, try FeedDemon. It is not perfect, it has a few defects , but it’s better than many other RSS readers.
And DON’T install NewsMonster, for Heaven’s sake !
i’ve installed it
now it’s too late and i’m reinstalling fx
it’s strange that this ^&%$%^ extension for MOZILLA and ONLY Mozilla (and Netscape probably) is in the FireFox category in en.wikipedia.org
So you won’t try to uninstall Newsmonster “the hard way”, by deleting newsmonster installation files and by editing the Firefox configuration files, as described in this post ?
Whatever solution you’ll adopt, one thing is for sure: this installation brought you hassle, I’m sorry for you, because it messed your Firefox up, and there is no easy and “normal” way to uninstall it.
Anyway, hope everything else is OK and I wish you a merry Christmas and a happy New Year.
thx for christmas greetings
well, i did some tasks which you described, but i’ve got a messy bar at the bottom of firefox (with strange red sign)
so, as a result, i’ve reinstalled whole browser - and now it’s ok
happy holidays from poland
Grah… I installed it for mozilla and it somehow found its way into my firefox installation (dont ask me how - dont know the anwser) and got a real hassle from it. Since Im using Unix based system it installs all around the place and tracking down files was just as easy as eating boulders. Uninstalling wasnt an option because I have a quazillion plugins and a custom theme installed for which I lost my source xpi and I wasnt ready to give it up. But the file erasing and modifications were not so succesfull. After difficult decision to reinstall firefox I got a horrific scenario. The bastard was still there. I lost everything because of that darn plugin. Dont istall that crap on unix even if your life depends on it.
“After difficult decision to reinstall firefox I got a horrific scenario. The bastard was still there.” I’ve got the same problems.
I HATE NEWSMONSTER!
I’m so glad to hear I wasn’t the only fool… I got rid of it now, thanks to the instructions.
Uninstalling and reinstalling Firefox is no big deal, so much easier and faster than the programmer’s way. Except that you need to use another browser to get it back…
thanks to you all,
Anne