Mozilla is releasing a series of updates for its software to prevent hackers from exploiting loopholes.
An update for the Firefox browser will look for unpatched versions of Adobe's Flash Player, which are vulnerable to hacking.
Johnathan Nightingale of the Firefox security team said in a blog posting: "For now, our focus is on the Adobe Flash Player both because of its popularity and because some studies have shown that as many as 80% of users currently have an out-of-date version."
He said that old versions of plug-ins could be a security risk as they are prone to crashes and other stability problems.
Updates that will check whether a user's version of Flash Player is secure are available for Firefox 3.0 and 3.5.
Mr Nightingale added: "Keeping your software up to date remains one of the best things you can do to keep yourself safe online."
Also in the pipeline are updates for browser software from Adobe, Apple, Sun and Microsoft. Mozilla has plans to collaborate with other plug-in suppliers to provide similar updates for their products.
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