Firefox has become a major player in the Internet browser wars and for good reason. More Internet users are becoming aware of the major benefits including better security, much better costomization, faster Internet surfing, and more. However, there are some reasons why you might want to remove or uninstall the Firefox Internet browser.

You’re just not going to convince everyone. People get used to using a browser like Internet Explorer and simply don’t want to try something new. Perhaps they download Firefox just so they can say they gave it a try, but quickly return to their browser of choice. Others may not use IE, but simply do not like Firefox either, for whatever reason. However, I think the main reason to remove Firefox is for upgrading. No doubt millions have downloaded and installed Firefox 3 and continue to do so, but there are some potential conflicts with older versions.

I experienced this myself recently. I installed FF3 just after it came out and began having trouble with soon after. I was slow to act, but I finally saved my Bookmarks and used the default Firefox uninstaller, thinking that would remove all traces of the browser. Unfortunately, that was not the case and my new installation of Firefox 3 had the same problems. Being the procrastinator that I am, I let Firefox drive me crazy for about a month, then decided to look further into the matter. What I found out from other FF users was that normal uninstall programs did not remove all traces of my old version of Firefox and this was causing conflicts with FF3.

I searched for and read seval guides to removing Firefox, and quickly realized they were not all providing the same information. So, which one to follow? I finally came accross the article below from TweaksGuides.com, which seemed correct and after going through the steps, proved to be the correct method for completely removing all traces of Firefox. It is also very easy to follow and computer users of any experience level should be able to perform these steps without any trouble. If you’re at all conserned about messing with the Windows registry, just be sure to back it up before performing these steps.

1. Backup your bookmarks as a Bookmarks.html file. In Firefox 2 go to the Bookmarks menu, select ‘Organize Bookmarks’, then select File>Export. In Firefox 3, go to the Bookmarks menu, select ‘Organize Bookmarks’, then select ‘Import and Backup’>Export HTML. Note the difference between .HTML and .JSON Bookmark files is explained in more detail in the Advanced Tweaking section of the guide.

2. Go to Control Panel>Add/Remove Programs in Windows XP; or Control Panel>Programs & Features in Windows Vista, and if a ‘Mozilla Firefox’ entry (or similar) exists, select it and click Change/Remove and uninstall it. During uninstallation, tick the ‘Remove my Firefox personal data and customizations’ box as well.

3. Go to your \Program Files\Mozilla Firefox directory and delete it and all of its contents if it still exists.

4. Delete the following directories if they exist:

In Windows XP -

\Documents and Settings\[username]\Application Data\Mozilla

\Documents and Settings\[Username]\Local Settings\Application Data\Mozilla

In Windows Vista -

\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Mozilla

\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\

Note that this will delete all of your bookmarks and saved settings, so make sure you’ve backed up your bookmarks as covered in step 1. You might also want to note down any passwords which you might otherwise forget.

5. Find and remove all Firefox/Mozilla-related entries in the Windows Registry. Using the Windows Registry Editor (Start>Run>Regedit), delete the following keys – that is, right click on their name in the left pane of Registry Editor and select Delete:

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\FirefoxHTML]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\FirefoxURL\]

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Applications\firefox.exe]

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Mozilla]

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MozillaPlugins]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Mozilla]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\mozilla.org]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\MozillaPlugins]

Note: If you also have Mozilla Thunderbird or any other Mozilla products installed, make sure to only uninstall entries under the keys above which relate directly to Firefox by name.