NavigatorPlugins.plugins

Deprecated

This feature is no longer recommended. Though some browsers might still support it, it may have already been removed from the relevant web standards, may be in the process of being dropped, or may only be kept for compatibility purposes. Avoid using it, and update existing code if possible; see the compatibility table at the bottom of this page to guide your decision. Be aware that this feature may cease to work at any time.

Returns a PluginArray object, listing the Plugin objects describing the plugins installed in the application.

In Firefox 29 and later, enumeration of the navigator.plugins array may be restricted as a privacy measure. Applications that must check for the presence of a browser plugin should query navigator.plugins or navigator.mimeTypes by exact name instead of enumerating the navigator.plugins array and comparing every plugin's name. This privacy change does not disable any plugins; it just hides some plugin names from enumeration.

Syntax

var plugins = navigator.plugins;

plugins is PluginArray object used to access Plugin objects either by name or as a list of items.

The returned value is not a JavaScript array, but has the length property and supports accessing individual items using bracket notation (plugins[2]), as well as via item(index) and namedItem("name") methods.

Examples

The following example function returns the version of the Shockwave Flash plugin.

function getFlashVersion() {
  var flash = navigator.plugins.namedItem('Shockwave Flash');
  if (typeof flash != 'object') {
    // flash is not present
    return undefined;
  }
  if(flash.version){
    return flash.version;
  } else {
    //No version property (e.g. in Chrome)
    return flash.description.replace(/Shockwave Flash /,"");
  }
}

The following example displays information about the installed plugin(s).

var pluginsLength = navigator.plugins.length;

document.body.innerHTML = pluginsLength + " Plugin(s)<br>"
  + '<table id="pluginTable"><thead>'
  +'<tr><th>Name</th><th>Filename</th><th>description</th><th>version</th></tr>'
  +'</thead><tbody></tbody></table>';

var table = document.getElementById('pluginTable');

for(var i = 0; i < pluginsLength; i++) {
  let newRow = table.insertRow();
  newRow.insertCell().textContent = navigator.plugins[i].name;
  newRow.insertCell().textContent = navigator.plugins[i].filename;
  newRow.insertCell().textContent = navigator.plugins[i].description;
  newRow.insertCell().textContent = navigator.plugins[i].version?navigator.plugins[i].version:"";
}

Notes

The Plugin object exposes a small interface for getting information about the various plugins installed in your browser. A list of plugins is also available by entering about:plugins in the browser's Location bar.

Specifications

Specification	Status	Comment
HTML Living Standard The definition of 'NavigatorPlugins.plugins' in that specification.	Living Standard	Initial definition.

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser

In addition to listing each plugin as a pseudo-array by zero-indexed numeric properties, Firefox provides properties that are the plugin name directly on the PluginArray object.