Help Me Get Ride of Firefox?

September 30, 2008 3:22 PM

I want to completely, entirely remove Firefox from my Macbook. Help me do that?

I want to sanitize Firefox off of this machine as if I'd never heard of it. When I bought my Macbook in the spring, I did a Firewire connection with my iMac and it imported Firefox from my desktop, a setup that isn't optimal and has not acted in the way I want it to on the laptop. I want to nuke every single vestige of the browser, in its entirety, so that I can download a fresh "out of the box" installation and rebuild from the ground up.

I've tried this once before, removing everything that I could find that seemed to be even remotely Firefox related and when I reinstalled the browser afterward, it "remembered" and recognized things (like autocomplete, things that had been adblocked/nuked with NukeEverything, that sort of thing) that shouldn't have lingered, but apparently I missed some things. I want to avoid that this time by finding every single folder where Firefox-y things dwell and deleting every little tiny thing completely. The obvious folders are, well, obvious, but can anyone tell me everywhere I need to look to make sure that nothing Firefox remains when my deletion is done?

FTR, this is Firefox 2.0.0.17 and I'm running Leopard with all the available OS updates.

posted by Dreama to computers & internet (7 comments total)

Try AppZapper. I think you can nuke 5 applications before you have to pay for it.
posted by cosmic osmo at 3:29 PM on September 30, 2008

It would help a little if you told us more specifically what things you had deleted, if you can remember. For instance, did you get rid of Library/Application Support/Firefox? I'm assuming you did, because it is fairly obvious.
posted by InsanePenguin at 3:34 PM on September 30, 2008

Login as root; open a terminal.

For each user, you'll need to delete their local firefox data:

cd /Users/[username]/Library/Application\ Support
rm -rf Firefox

Then delete Firefox itself:

cd /Applications
rm -rf Firefox.app

WARNING: I know next to nothing about Macs. I'm a Windows guy. I just occasionally mess with the dude-who-sits-next-to-me's Macbook. He loves it.
posted by jeffamaphone at 3:34 PM on September 30, 2008

or, if you want to go through by hand, some places you should look are:

~/library/application support
~/library/preferences
~/library/caches
library/application support
library/preferences
library/caches

It sounds like you have some errant preference files (.plist) somewhere.
posted by cosmic osmo at 3:38 PM on September 30, 2008

App Delete does the same thing as App Zapper, but is totally free.
posted by zazerr at 3:38 PM on September 30, 2008

On my Mac, the Firefox related folders are:

~/Library/Application Support/Firefox
~/Library/Caches/Firefox

Plus the following files:
~/Library/Preferences/org.mozilla.firefox.plist
/Applications/Firefox.app

Deleting each of those should cover everything.
posted by bcwinters at 3:47 PM on September 30, 2008

The Mac tech friend who helps me with my Mac recommended the free AppCleaner - you can download it from MacUpdate.com. It has done a great job when I've used it, and it's ultra easy to use.
posted by onemorething at 3:51 PM on September 30, 2008