The latest “enhancement”from Redmond is the invisible installation of the ‘.NET Framework Assistant’plug in into Firefox. This increases the probability of your computer being compromised by malware delivered by malicious websites. This also breaks the tradition of plug ins for Firefox being something that You control,unlike malware,viruses,keystroke loggers,and other attack software on the web,which use .Net,ActiveX,Visual Basic,COM and COM+ holes to make your life miserable.
This plug in is removable.But not in the standard method that Firefox has. It is much more complex. Directions are here. Note:Read the directions carefully and follow to the letter.
Being a Windows user,you are not required to install the .Net Framework,(which is just another Microsoft crapola product like ActiveX,and COM objects that have been insecure for years,and only provide marginal functionality for using a browser to surf the net.) regardless of the warnings by websites telling you need them. Need like a second asshole. All of these things provide interfaces and shortcuts to coding applications,which begs the question of how lazy programmers and coders really are,or just how far from HTML which stands for HyperText Markup Language,with emphasis on HyperText folks think we need.
A lot of the geewhiz crap on the web has nothing to do with text but is either data tracking or ego stroking exercise. In either case,it is not necessary.