Necessary apps in Firefox on my Windows XP SP3?

[pattybrew]

I need to clean out Firefox on this machine, Dell Demension  4700 with Windows XP SP3.
Firefox is ver 47. For some time now I have been searching for answers to this. If I am posting in wrong area please forgive and tell me where to go.  Thank you so much.
Here is the list of optional items in Firefox Plugins that are in question:

Real Downloader Plugin
Real Networks RealDownloader Chrome Background Ext
RealNetworks Real Downloader HTML5VideoShim Pugin
RealNetworks RealDownloader PepperFlash VideoShim plugin
Microsoft DRM disabled
Shockwave for Director disabled
Windows Presentation Foundation
 I don't even use Firefox anymore because it is so slow. It looks to me like it has some of Google Chromes Plugins in it. Are they necessary in Firefox.
Thank you so much for your help.

[pattybrew]

I set to 'never activate' and will see how that does. Wish I could easily remove them without having to totally reset FDF. Thank you for your help!!.

[DaveLembke]

Easiest way to clean out firefox is to uninstall it and reinstall it.

Given age of computer, you mentioned it being slow with firefox. Only methods of making that computer faster would be to make sure the hard drive is defragmented and you have at least 1GB RAM as well as the GPU/video card is powerful enough to handle whatever multimedia or games you might run.

*My daughter is running a Dimension 4600 which I upgraded her from a Pentium 4 2.4Ghz to a Celeron D 335 2.8Ghz. The Celeron D 335 2.8Ghz CPU runs stronger than the Pentium 4 she had in it prior with the added SSE3 instruction support, even though there is only 1/2 the cache of the Pentium 4. If your system is running the Pentium 4 HT series CPU then thats probably the fastest CPU you can use or its not worth buying one that is a few more hundred Mhz. Also adding a Geforce 6200 8x AGP video card with 256MB video RAM drastically improved streaming ( youtube, hulu, netflix, crackle, etc ) as well as games, as well as flash content in websites.

Are there specific things in firefox that dont run well and lag?

[Geek-9pm]

DaveLembke
The poster, pattybrew, says she is a beginner. So lets make it easy.

If one  were to try another browser, it may become clear what is making trouble.  For Windows XP one can use IE 6 and it should work good on many web sites.

Only a few add on programs are needed. Most often some kind of video player or something like that. But it depends on what site you  view.

The fact that something might work on my old computer is no proof  it will another composer  running XP.

For awhile, I had to stop using Firefox. Strange. I never did understand what it was doing. Anyway, there are lots of other browsers one can try. In my opinion it is easier to change browsers  and not try to fix the system. 

[Allan]

DaveLembke
The poster, pattybrew, says she is a beginner. So lets make it easy.

Uninstalling and reinstalling is the easiest method for anyone.

[Geek-9pm]

Uninstalling and reinstalling is the easiest method for anyone.

I respectfully disagree,
My suggestion is ti try another browser.
Chrome will work, but no longer supported for XP.

[Allan]

I respectfully disagree,
My suggestion is ti try another browser.
Chrome will work, but no longer supported for XP.

The OP asked about clearing Firefox of add-ons, not using another browser. While I agree it's easy enough to install and use an additional browser, it doesn't address the original question. And please, let's not argue in this thread and confuse the OP any further.

[patio]

Agreed....the other aspect of this is not all FireFox addons are authoured by FireFox and indeed dramatically affect browser performance...

A clean install would eliminate the issue.

[pattybrew]

I agree that Chrome is better since I have tried to revive the old xp. On FF the games are laggy, not other apps. I have reinstalled FF a few times but not a clean install. I will try that next. Thanks for all the help and suggestions.

[patio]

It ain't FFox...

[pattybrew]

Thanks everyone for the helpful info. Much appreciated. I uninstalled FF and did a deep scan/install to get everything off machine so that none of it will install when I do the Clean install.
Before I reinstall I want to get info on the best OS to install on this old machine that is still very good. I am weary of dealing XP.

[patio]

Probably would need info on the system before recommending an OS...
It may be time to cut your losses however...

[pattybrew]

A bad trojan was found in my Firefox Browser so I deleted the total FF from machine. That is probably why it was working so badly.