Arthur Posted March 8, 2018 Posted March 8, 2018 (edited) It's hard to believe, but Firefox is finally getting official GPO support in v60 (which is due for release on 9th May 2018). The policy templates can be downloaded from this link... https://github.com/mozilla/policy-templates There aren't as many policies as Chrome or IE, but I suppose it's a start. It would have been nice to have 10 years ago!!! Edited March 8, 2018 by Arthur 4
ShellfishClive Posted March 8, 2018 Posted March 8, 2018 Bit of a shame it's so late as most people are used to using Chrome or IE now so changing could cause uproar with most staff, nice to see that they are expanding though!
Norphy Posted March 8, 2018 Posted March 8, 2018 They're even using ADMXs. I was half expecting to find ADMs in there.
jthompson Posted March 8, 2018 Posted March 8, 2018 Now they just need an official MSI! That right there must account for a few percentages of market share given to the competition. Is there an actual reason for there not being MSI in the first place? All that effort gone into coaxing people to use their browser, and then people who actually want to deploy it to hundreds of users (who'll use whatever their given, frankly), aren't given the tools to do it.
Arthur Posted March 8, 2018 Author Posted March 8, 2018 Now they just need an official MSI! Mozilla have left it so late they might as well create an MSIX instead now... https://winaero.com/blog/microsoft-introduced-new-msix-packaging-format/ 1
DrCheese Posted March 8, 2018 Posted March 8, 2018 That right there must account for a few percentages of market share given to the competition Yup! Second Chrome came out with an msi (5+ years ago now) I rolled it out across the site. It's now our default browser...
Valyyn Posted March 9, 2018 Posted March 9, 2018 "Rember passwords" How sure are we this will work and has been thoroughly checked? xD
sonofsanta Posted March 15, 2018 Posted March 15, 2018 I'd been figuring on switching to Chrome when we go Win10 (because as if I'm having Edge as the default...) but this might be an interesting alternative. I much prefer Firefox myself 1
sted Posted March 15, 2018 Posted March 15, 2018 I'd been figuring on switching to Chrome when we go Win10 (because as if I'm having Edge as the default...) but this might be an interesting alternative. I much prefer Firefox myself i used to then once i deployed chrome everywhere as edge sucks i got so used to chrome i see few reasons to go back i dont think i even installed it on my laptop when i got it and my desktop it only got loaded when i clicked it by accident
FN-GM Posted March 15, 2018 Posted March 15, 2018 Too late really. Enterprises who want an alternative will have gone to Chrome by now
Arthur Posted May 10, 2018 Author Posted May 10, 2018 Firefox 60 has been released. There are a lot more settings in Mozilla's policy templates now. Firefox gets down to Business, and it’s Personal Enterprise IT pros can customize Firefox Quantum for the office It’s not uncommon for people to use many different browsers, one they personally use at home and another at the office. Similar to how you set up your own Firefox browser with your personal preferences, Firefox Quantum for Enterprise can now be customized by your employer to optimize for performance on the job and meet the specific needs of your workplace. Today’s release has a new feature to support IT professionals who want to customize the browser for their employees. IT professionals can now configure Firefox for their organization, either using Group Policy on Windows, or a JSON file that works across the Mac, Linux, and Windows operating systems. Here’s a look at how it works: IT professionals can choose to deploy either the standard Rapid Release (RR) of Firefox or the Extended Support Release (ESR). The standard Rapid Release auto-updates with performance improvements and new features roughly every six weeks, while the Extended Support Release usually receives these features in one big upgrade per year. Both Rapid Release and Extended Support Release receive critical security updates as soon as possible. With today’s release, the Extended Support Release of Firefox is now version 60. IT professionals eager to use to Firefox Quantum in their organization can visit this site for access. IT professionals curious about why the new Firefox is great for for organizational use can learn more in this blog post about Firefox Quantum for Enterprise.
DrCheese Posted May 10, 2018 Posted May 10, 2018 Years late & they still don't have an official msi! Chrome for Enterprise went out here years ago because of it's early support for GPO and MSI rollouts :/
Arthur Posted May 10, 2018 Author Posted May 10, 2018 they still don't have an official msi! Google's Chrome MSI is just a wrapper around an embedded EXE installer. The lack of an official MSI for Firefox probably isn't a deal breaker for most enterprises especially since many will have something like SCCM in place. You are right they have missed the boat in terms of enterprise adoption however. Unless Mozilla change how updates are dealt with, it's unlikely we'll ever seen an MSI from Mozilla... https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=231062 The installer team has been looking into MSI work, but my understanding is that MSI is generally incompatible with how our update system and multi-install support works, so it's not just about accepting an MSI installer
jb2201 Posted August 18, 2018 Posted August 18, 2018 We just wrapped the ESR exe installer in an MSI and it worked great, only gripe with Firefox in general is that it doesn’t have flash built in like the other browsers.
Arthur Posted November 29, 2018 Author Posted November 29, 2018 (edited) Now they just need an official MSI! Official MSI coming soon. I didn't expect we'd ever see one! 🤯 https://www.ghacks.net/2018/11/29/firefox-65-supports-msi-installers Mozilla plans to offer Firefox MSI installers for Windows systems with the release of Firefox 65. MSI installers will be offered alongside regular Firefox installers offered as .exe files for Windows PCs. MSI installers will be offered for each locale, version of Windows and CPU architecture that is supported, just like it is the case for .exe installers currently. In other words: Windows 7 or newer, 32-bit or 64-bit, and all locales that Firefox supports. Firefox Nightly MSI installers are already available; Mozilla plans to publish MSI installers for Beta and Release versions of the Firefox web browser when these versions hit version 65. Firefox Beta 65 will be released in December 2018, Firefox 65 Stable at the end of January 2019. The Nightly installer is not available on the official download site on the Mozilla website; administrators who would like to download the MSI installer need to open this page on archive.mozilla.org to download the installer to the local system. It is possible that the installer will be offered on the official Enterprise website on the Mozilla website once it hits the stable release channel. MSI installers are useful for deployment through deployment tools such as Active Directory or Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager. Administrators may run the installation with options to customize the installation. Mozilla published available options on a support page. The following MSI transforms are supported: INSTALL_DIRECTORY_PATH=[path] to define a path for the Firefox installation. INSTALL_DIRECTORY_NAME=[name] to define the name of the Firefox directory. TASKBAR_SHORTCUT={true,false} defines whether a taskbar shortcut is placed during installation. DESKTOP_SHORTCUT={true,false} defines whether a desktop shortcut is placed during installation. START_MENU_SHORTCUT={true,false} defines whether a Start Menu shortcut is placed during installation. INSTALL_MAINTENANCE_SERVICE={true,false} defines whether the Maintenance Service is installed. REMOVE_DISTRIBUTION_DIR={true,false} defines whether the distribution directory of an installation is removed. PREVENT_REBOOT_REQUIRED={true,false} to allow or prevent reboots if required. OPTIONAL_EXTENSIONS={true,false} ti allow or disallow the installation of bundled extensions. EXTRACT_DIR=[directory] extracts the Firefox files without installing them. Edit. The MSI is just a wrapper around the EXE installer (just like Google's Chrome MSI). Edited November 29, 2018 by Arthur 1
free780 Posted November 29, 2018 Posted November 29, 2018 And javas and etc etc. If you've got SCCM you might as well do /Silent for the install. Good to have an alternative to Chrome.
Arthur Posted June 3, 2019 Author Posted June 3, 2019 New features coming to Firefox for enterprises... https://youtu.be/jB_5h4ihih4 Updated Group Policy templates were also released today for Firefox 67 and 60.7 ESR. https://github.com/mozilla/policy-templates/releases/tag/v1.7 This release provides support for the following new policies on Firefox 67 and Firefox ESR 60.7: CaptivePortal ExtensionUpdate NetworkPrediction
SYNACK Posted June 6, 2019 Posted June 6, 2019 Out of the loop on the new MSI but was using the Frontmotion build for years 6 or so years ago which had AD configuration built in back then https://www.frontmotion.com/fmfirefoxce/ Stopped using it a long time ago thanks to the rather windows profile unfriendly unix style of settings and history that vomited thousands upon thousands of files till the profile sync broke. They may have fixed it since but have been using chrome msi and admx templates for so long now. Maybe when Edge switches to the Chromium engine it will be necessary to give FF another shot to give two actual choices on each station.
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