Plugins such as Flash Player, Silverlight, Java and such whether on Windows, Mac OSX or Linux are installed onto your system and not in Firefox like Extensions and complete Themes are.

Ok but firefox is still controlling the download.. not windows, as in the case with ie it downloads and runs the flashplayer update or allows a save or run.

Firefox does not allow you to run .exe as it is a security issue. People would blame Mozilla or the Firefox browser and not themselves if they could run a iamreallyatrojan.exe and infected their Windows.

If you wonder where your Plugins Firefox is making use of is located on your system then type about:plugins in the Location (address) bar. This and other about: urls can be seen in about:about

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/opendownload-10902/

I know where the plugins are....I disagree to the point that is what a good antivirus should be doing is checking the file before it runs. Do you think that after the file is downloaded that everyone is doing a virus check on the file ? Do you think that ie is worrying about it..since they let it run..Know the site and be sure your virus detection checks first !!I would say not...I understand what you are saying I thought that there might have been a setting to get around it !! Np, thanks for the info.