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Here’s the procedure required to remove this garbage from Firefox:

   1. Open Registry Editor (type regedit in the Start menu Search box in Vista/Windows 7, or in XP’s Run window).

   2. Expand the branches to the following key:

   * On 32-bit systems: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Mozilla \ Firefox \ Extensions

   * On x64 systems: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Wow6432Node \ Mozilla \ Firefox \ Extensions

   3. Delete the value named {20a82645-c095-46ed-80e3-08825760534b} from the right pane.

   4. Close the Registry Editor when you’re done.

   5. Open a new Firefox window, and in the address bar, type about:config and press Enter.

   6. Type microsoftdotnet in the Filter field to quickly find the general.useragent.extra.microsoftdotnet setting.

   7. Right-click general.useragent.extra.microsoftdotnet and select Reset.

   8. Restart Firefox.

   9. Open Windows Explorer, and navigate to %SYSTEMDRIVE%\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5\Windows Presentation Foundation.

  10. Delete the DotNetAssistantExtension folder entirely.

  11. Open the Add-ons window in Firefox to confirm that the Microsoft .NET Framework Assistant extension has been removed.

The first Firefox 3.1 beta has been made available for download, bringing with it a number of cool new features. However, possibly the coolest of those features, the lightning-fast TraceMonkey JavaScript engine, is disabled by default. Fortunately, it’s a quick fix to turn it on:

“To activate it, type “about:config” into the Smart Bar, then type “javascript.options.jit.content” into the filter. Double-click on the preference listed to change the boolean setting from “false” to “true.” Close the window and you should notice an immediate improvement to the JavaScript rendering speed.”

He used the SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark test to demonstrate the improvements in the new engine, which completed the test in 2788 milliseconds, compared to 5447 ms for Firefox 3.0.3. Always the skeptics, we tried the benchmark ourselves, and witnessed an even more dramatic improvement.  For us, speed more than doubled, from 4725 ms to 2227 ms.

So if you’re trying out the 3.1 beta, enable the TraceMonkey engine and see what it can do for you. Share your experiences after the jump.