Can you force Firefox to let a “not compatible” plug-in run? — MileWideBack

Question

I just upgraded to Firefox 3.6 and one of my all-time favorite plug-ins was automatically disabled as "Not comparable with Firefox 3.6." The Enable button is disabled.

I suspect that the add-on might work with 3.6 but Firefox is just playing it safe because the add-on has not been updated and doesn't report explicit compatibility, yet. I want to at least try.

Is there a setting or configuration file somewhere I can change to trick Firefox into thinking that I have a later version of the add-on than I actually have?

The Details

The plug-in is called MileWideBack (firefox add-in, home page). It lets you switch/close tabs tabs and navigate pages by clicking anywhere on the left edge of the browser. You can quickly flip through tabs and close tabs with the scroll wheel. You can navigate forward/back by clicking anywhere on the left edge of the browser... all without taking your eyes off the page to look for a tab or a button. It makes me very agile with multi-tab browsing. It's a huge productivity booster and I very much want it back.

Alternately: If you know of another plug-in that offers this type of functionality...

Answer 1

Have you tried setting extensions.checkCompatibility and extensions.checkUpdateSecurity (in about:config) to false? You may need to create these boolean values for it to work.

Answer 2

Yes, you can. Try the Nightly Tester Tools, which can force plugins to load, among other useful features.

If it doesn't work, some of this functionality is availible in FireGesures - I have tab switching mapped to Right Click and scroll wheel.

Answer 3

There's also a Firefox extension that just turns off compatibility checking: Add-on Compatibility Reporter

Answer 4

This very useful Firefox extension, FEBE (Firefox Environment Backup Extension), can suppress version checks on the installation of any extension. You could use it to force FF 3.6 to re-install MileWideBack.

FEBE does many other useful actions, like FF backup, which makes it one of my all-time favorite plug-ins.