Firefox Enterprise (firefox.com)

582 pointsby recvonline10 hours ago240 comments

solatic 3 hours ago

Folks here don't understand how big of a market this is. Island just raised a $400 million Series F at $6.4 billion valuation: https://www.island.io/press/island-announces-400-million-ser...

Mozilla is also very, very far behind in this race. But the potential is real. Enterprises have both the budget and the motivation to care about DLP (including preventing employees from copy/pasting sensitive data into AI chat apps), VPN-less access to private intranet apps (including to contractors on BYOD), preventing access to sites that distract employees and have zero business value (pornography, gambling, etc.)...

If you care about an open web browser, you should care about it having a sustainable revenue model. Enterprise browsers are exactly that revenue model. The question is not whether this is a good idea; the question is whether Mozilla can catch up.

peterrojas 2 hours ago

Yep, we know how much work we need to here (I work at Mozilla leading new products and this is in my portfolio). We're being very deliberate about how we go after the opportunity and are focusing right on enterprises (in Europe to start) that can take advantage of what we can offer now, while we move quickly to add new features and capabilities to address a broader audience. I think we can get there!

mmooss 2 hours ago

Agreed. This is a great move by Mozilla - great timing, great vision, great potential for revenue.

Managing browsers - portals to almost every use and risk - is a PITA and I don't trust Chrome for confidentiality of data or users. Access to actual Mozilla personnel (engineers?) would be a big differentiator. But I wonder about a couple of things:

1) What are Edge and Safari management like? Are they competition here? If IT wants to move off Chrome to a management-friendly browser, the first thought would be the platform's native browsers which might integrate easily with native management.

2) How well does Firefox's management solution work? One-off management solutions for single applications have a bad history: They are often buggy, poorly designed (how much is Mozilla investing in UI design for this small number of users), complicated to learn, deploy (is this some sort of client-server? require another app client-side?), operate (what about WAN users? intermittent connections?), have poor features (multiple profiles? per-user or per-device? multiple users per device and multiple devices per user? group management? integration with other directory services - or do they reinvent the wheel and I need to input every update in multiple applications? multiple platforms? mobile apps?), manage (the management app needs management), etc. Does it reliably autodeploy or do I need to manually do something for each of my 10,000 users? Again, how much will Mozilla invest in this small group of users, the IT admins? I already have Microsoft's / Apple's native platform management solutions and those are enough of a headache.

I'd advise Mozilla to make it a delight for IT admins - immediately remove their fears of an additional headache in their busy days - and they will jump right in. As long as it works, I don't think users would care. Everyone, users and admins, is too busy.

gcp an hour ago

is this some sort of client-server? require another app client-side?

It's client-server (Firefox <=> management console). There's no other app needed client side, it's all built into the browser.

what about WAN users? intermittent connections?

Supported (one of our core developers often works on a spotty 5G, so we got rather loud feedback when this broke...)

multiple profiles? per-user or per-device? multiple users per device and multiple devices per user? group management? integration with other directory services - or do they reinvent the wheel and I need to input every update in multiple applications? multiple platforms?

Yes to pretty much all of these - minus reinventing the wheel - I think only "multiple profiles for the same user-id" are currently not supported. You'd essentially need to give an alternate login to the users that need this (because that's what triggers the profile selection). I don't think there's technically anything stopping this, just didn't seem like a common enough use case to get in the very first release.

mobile apps?

Not in this first release. (^_~)

Does it reliably autodeploy or do I need to manually do something for each of my 10,000 users?

We expect most will autodeploy over an existing MDM solution (Intune, Fleet, ...).

Again, how much will Mozilla invest in this small group of users, the IT admins?

I'd say Firefox Enterprise's customers are the IT admins, no? The users aren't generally the asking party to get a managed browser.

mmooss an hour ago

Great, thanks for the response. I'm excited to see that it seems well thought-through and Mozilla has indeed invested in it.

All I would say is, put something on your website that persuades admins that it won't be a headache, that it will make their workday easier, not harder - regardless of benefits to overall IT goals. Maybe a 1-2-3 screen clips/animations (fantasizing a bit of the content for this example):

1 - Deploy: Add this pref to the FFE application deployment package and FFE management is deployed in every installation!

2 - Open the management console - there's the new installation, and it's automatically listed under the user/device synced from directory services!

3 - Manage: (shows user/device in a group, and a nice set of clearly defined - non-ambiguous - hierarchical checkboxes for that group's prefs).

And actually make it reliably that easy - which I know means more work on your end and isn't always practical, but it makes an enormous difference IME. Get people talking about how easy it is. Solve their busyness problem.

DoctorOW 9 hours ago

As a Firefox user, I hope this works. As someone who works in IT, people are going to try and install Chrome at all costs and your ticket queues will be clogged with people saying a computer is broken or has no internet access if it doesn't have Chrome on it.

nine_k 9 hours ago

For general-purpose use this may be true. For specialized Web-based tools, like access to medical or legal systems, not as much: the users are conditioned to work with a specific browser (many remember MSIE-only apps), and are used to the idea that their workstation has all kinds of Internet access limitations, along with a corporate policy that expressly forbids arbitrary browsing.

[Edited: typo]

j45 7 hours ago

The browser familiarity might have been more true 15-30 years ago.

The installation of any software and management of it is norhing tnew in the corporate world.

Chrome may be chrome. Chrome is not the default on windows computers in corporations. Edge usually is.

After it's installed, professionals much more now know today how to remember which icon to select and run.

dkenyser 6 hours ago

I wish this was true. At my org we had to add Chrome to the base image because otherwise we get so many tickets/calls about it even though we provide it via an internal software distribution service that any user has access to. People like what they like and are very resistant to change.

j45 2 hours ago

I wish that was true too.

I remember one place simply changed the icon and watched the issues drop.

People really can be creatures of habit.

Some enterprises i've seen put in their own icon for a web browser (imagine starting with an intranet) and that helps separate it a bit more.

This might not be for everyone, nor ideal in all cases but people seemed to be OK with the idea of having a dashboard to launch their work from.

sekinfo 4 hours ago

Have done small to medium institutional rollouts of Firefox in different orgs, some of which were on top of a Linux base and others a Windows base. Windows deployments include Firefox in the base image and configuration is managed with AD and Ansible. Linux deployments manage configuration with Ansible. The preinstalled browsers were removed or disabled.

All users received an orientation and were informed that Firefox is the only approved browser.

Firefox was pinned to the desktop and taskbar, usually with the name "INTERNET" as the web browser is commonly known here.

The number of support tickets was very small. Usually if a user reported a problem with the web browser, it was a page that was also broken in Chrome or some other network issue.

Users reacted positively when they saw that there are no ads in Firefox. uBlock Origin was preinstalled.

Without ads and tracking scripts the web browser is massively faster, which also was perceived by users.

If there is any initial resistance to Firefox, it usually melts quickly.

The only bother has been the frequent UI updates to Firefox, which occasionally cause frustration until we apply a new configuration to revert whatever fresh horrors Firefox designers have birthed. With ESR, these problems are less frequent.

I hope this Firefox Enterprise freezes the UI to the classic "tabs look like tabs" aesthetic, maintaining the option of vertical tabs.

j45 2 hours ago

I briefly read institutional as 'intentional', with both in mind, the standardization of experience is something that's really wroth thinking about.

One feeling I am starting to get is server side web apps might make more of a re-emergence, because putting so much application and business logic in the front end serves as a bigger footprint for possible security issues.

With respect to resistance to browsers (or preference for something else), I agree that users seek familiarity and those who got to start with Firefox do still remember it.

Mozilla is just one org, but it's relative independence will hopefully provide other perspectives to using a web browser as a universal interface, not just for humans, but our new sentence-dna containing friends.

graemep 9 hours ago

Change the icon to look like Chrome?

rockdoe 8 hours ago

MSIE style internet globe or GTFO

graemep 8 hours ago

and change the name shown to "Google" because people call it that, because that is the default home page.

Yizahi 7 hours ago

To "Moogle"

onuvgnonycvh 2 hours ago

Kupo!

BonoboIO 8 hours ago

BILLION DOLLAR IDEA

ctkhn 8 hours ago

An earlier company I worked at had this same issue with Internet Explorer. It was after IE had been deprecated by microsoft as a browser but our IT department still had it as a downloadable application. Most of my team's on-call issues were from internal users using IE to access our site, even after we added an IE compatible popup that would tell them NOT to use IE.

j45 7 hours ago

Chrome, or Firefox are third party browsers to the operating system.

The internet explorer/edge issues were due to a web browser that was built into the operating system, and owned by the operating system company (Microsoft in this case).

There was a popular trend for a while that IE was the windows feature that let you download a different browser.

Apple had a similar run with Safari and from what I recall had to change.

mattmaroon 8 hours ago

I tried for a year to use it before just switching to Brave and getting the best of both worlds.

cassianoleal 5 hours ago

I don’t think you’re getting the best of Firefox by using Chromium

mdip 7 hours ago

I've found this to be one of those issues that just seems completely normal when you first hear it but when you dig into the actual users, the "why" starts to get lost.

My anec-data on the subject seems to imply it affects a very specific segment of people: The "I only use a (usually Windows) computer at work" folks. The odd part of that is that almost all of them seem to own iPhones or iPads (specifically not Android devices) and since they use these devices, exclusively, outside of work and one can assume they're probably opening Safari for browsing, why do they have such a strong association that Chrome must be "the browser." This segment, though, seems to make up a large majority of "knowledge workers" outside of IT.

Now, like probably a lot of us here, I'm the tech support for everyone who knows I "play with computers professionally." One of the first things I do is remove the Chrome and Edge icon from the task bar[0] and add Firefox with a small set of extensions that generally keep me from having to revisit them due to malware. I usually just tell them "The button you use to get on the Internet changed but it's the same." ... and Bob's your uncle. I return a year later, the same Firefox icon is in the same place, updated several versions and all is well. They all vaguely knew they were using something different before, some knew it was called Chrome or Edge, but "the icon changed" is all I've had to say for probably a decade since the two browsers' core functionality is close enough that they generally cover every site the older generation would be expected to visit.

It feels like a variation of "they've got enough knowledge to be dangerous."

[0] I don't think I've ever seen my parents, aunts/uncles, extended older family every try to find a program through that menu that pops up when you click the button that used to be called the "Start" button. :)

59percentmore 3 hours ago

Assuming this is not NYC: how many of the people in the group you're describing drive reliable, used cars that they own outright, and how many lease new? I think I know which, and if so, it would go a long way towards characterizing their mindset.

I think it's a status play, for people who have been convinced that status is tantamount to utility. If you lower yourself to options that aren't well-known to be high status, or at least known - particularly ones that require tinkering of any sort - you are wasting time, and worse, you are signalling to other people that you're a time-waster, that your time isn't valuable, and that your choice to waste time rather than use the default or high-status option shows that you have a defect in judgment.

stuartd 2 hours ago

Many years ago I installed Firefox 0.6 on my mother-in-law’s laptop and gave it the IE logo - she never noticed, it never got updated, but she never had any malware problems.

jamienk 7 hours ago

I'm so old I still feel like Chrome is new.

IAmBroom 4 hours ago

Get off MySpace, Jeeves!

omoikane 6 hours ago

> people are going to try and install Chrome at all costs

Mozilla might have anticipated this when they wrote "Diversify your browser engine" as one of the selling points.

https://www.firefox.com/en-US/enterprise/firefox-enterprise/...

Diversification is a good idea, personally I use both Chrome and Firefox every day (and sometimes Lynx).

MisterTea 5 hours ago

We used to install FF and Chrome on the local PCs at work to ensure this would not be an issue. The office workers just used Edge.

roughly 3 hours ago

Also, half the sites on the Internet don’t work properly on anything but chrome. At home, I’m an ardent and committed Firefox user, at work, I use Chrome like everyone else (and keep anything personal as far away from it as I can).

erfgh 3 hours ago

"Half the sites" is a huge overstatement. I very rarely find sites that do not work on Firefox.

wussboy 2 hours ago

Completely agree. I've used Firefox as my primary browser for over twenty years and it's less than once a week that I come across something that needs Chrome.

nijave 3 hours ago

Firefox works with uBlock--maybe that alone is enough incentive

prmoustache 35 minutes ago

In my workplace a lot of people used to like firefox because it was the only browser on which the pac proxy setting was not enforced by group policy so it allowed them to have their corporate apps to actually work regardless of the network they were connected to.

They lost fierefox a few months ago due to new compamy policy and with it lost access to some apps when working from home. We know it is related to the proxy config but company is so big and processes are such a mess nobody knows who should be contacted and by which email alias or service now ticket.

nicoburns 10 hours ago

This was needed. A lot of large businesses ban Firefox because they don't have these kind of controls. I can't test Firefox on my work computer because company policy prevents it being installed. And that kind of thing really hurts Firefox.

insin 9 hours ago

The large business I work for cited low usage when they blocked it from being installed a couple of years back.

LeBit 9 hours ago

I work in IT and I am still surprised by how few of us are passionate about what we do.

90% of my colleagues use Microsoft Edge without extensions.

Other browsers are seen as exotic.

kakacik 9 hours ago

All windows and desktop support folks where I work (bank) still work with File explorer, only it drives me crazy.

I've showed them Total commander and some advanced features, panes and overall speed but no, they all went back to hunting little windows, browsing by clicking, drag and drop hunts and so on.

The obvious inefficiency and their sluggishness when doing anything on filesystem is driving me crazy but I gave up.

miroljub 9 hours ago

> The obvious inefficiency and their sluggishness when doing anything on filesystem is driving me crazy but I gave up.

Would they get a raise if they are more efficient? Or go home earlier? Well, you have your answer here :)

graemep 9 hours ago

At the very least they would have less work to do.

javcasas 8 hours ago

No one ever has "less work to do". That's why managers exist: to find meaningful or meaningless work to do to fill the time saved, and eventually fire other people in order to ensure no one ever has less work to do.

graemep 8 hours ago

Lots of people pretend to work more than they do.

javcasas 6 hours ago

That is the inevitable result. As a worker, either you pretend to work by appearing to already be overworked, or you get piled up more and more work until you are overworked.

fassssst 7 hours ago

That’s like berating someone for using Notepad instead of Vim.

People don’t care about optimizing every little thing.

preg_match 7 hours ago

Yes but if your work day consisted of only writing text, then using notepad would be torture.

It seems only developers invest time and energy into their tooling and software required to do their job. It would be kind of unthinkable for a developer at a big company to not use some kind of IDE and instead use the OS built-in text editor.

itintheory 4 hours ago

I've met plenty of developers who seem to go too far in the other direction and spend all their time optimizing their tools, and not actually producing anything that anyone else cares about. Reminds me of https://xkcd.com/1205/

ian-g 2 hours ago

It sounds like https://xkcd.com/1172/ too

d3Xt3r 5 minutes ago

And also https://xkcd.com/1319/

queenkjuul 7 hours ago

Lol idk file explorer is pretty much fine? Finder is a joke but I've never really felt any need to replace File Explorer. Tree view, tabs, bookmarks/shortcuts...I've never really liked a two-pane UI vs just having two windows, or two tabs, and windows can snap two windows side by side with two key presses. What about TC is saving you serious amounts of time?

r_lee 6 hours ago

yyyyeeeaaaa..... I can see why they wouldn't wanna use that lol. I don't see how that would "drive you crazy"?

wackget 5 hours ago

I'm a developer and have never considered the need for an alternative file explorer.

Can you please briefly describe the features you think make it worth it?

avgDev 3 hours ago

Same. I did not know anything like this existed and I've been tinkering with PCs and building them for 3 decades.

kakacik 40 minutes ago

Tons of features packed into 1 small integrated, very fast completely bugless tool done by 1 guy - ie sftp client, best recursive search I've used in Windows (including nested archives), I can view and edit files directly in archives (even within archives) without the need to unpack/repack them, great files / folders comparator, viewer for many formats including hex, open plugin support with good ecosystem, 2-pane system with tabs makes everything much faster and you can keep a lot of parallel work around for later, it remembers them after closing/restart, copying / moving queue is fantastic. You can customize everything. I am barely scratching surface with above. In good ol' Winrar style you can use it perpetually for free as shareware (but damn if somebody deserves money for their tool its this guy).

Once proficient I am much much faster than proficient file explorer users, its not even comparable when one does a lot of things with files/folders, personally and profesionally. By far the best windows-only software I am aware of and the one of main reasons I didnt migrate to Linux. Otherwise I would need 10+ additional software installed and some features of it are best in class (on windows at least).

Its good ol' Norton Commander from DOS alive but has gigatons of modern improvements.

prmoustache 30 minutes ago

> Can you please briefly describe the features you think make it worth it?

If we are talking specifically about windows explorer, I think not freezing randomly for no reason once in a while would be considered a nice feature.

pino83 3 hours ago

I'll tell you a secret: I'm actually using only MS Edge on my corporate machine. Although some months ago they began to roll-out Firefox as well (for whatever reason).

I don't care. On that machine, there is NOTHING going on that I own (all of that is the IP of someone else).

Such a machine, with Windows, MS Teams, MS Whatsoever, Symantec Whatsoever, Cloud Office, Cloud Ticket System, Cloud Wiki, ..., ..., ... doesn't get more trustworthy just by using Firefox. They run a continuous MitM attack against all https connections that I make (and a lot of your employers do the same)!!! You can polish turds, but you cannot make that environment a trustworthy one.

I would never touch that machine for anything remotely "personal". On the other hand, for work, I don't care. I'll use the default browser, and if the default browser is MS Edge, I'll not spend ANY effort into working around it. That wouldn't be "passionate", but just stupid imho. YMMV of course depending on the employer and other factors.

And if there is a page full of ads, and it overwhelms me too much, well, I'll make a walk to the coffee machine and come back when I'm ready for it. It's that easy.

Foobar8568 9 hours ago

I gotta love to get "for security/safety" reasons, and yet I get ads on anything served. Bonus points for YouTube.

rockdoe 9 hours ago

I mean I get it, as an admin there's only so much time you want to spend to support everyone's favorite setup. So "security/safety" is kind of a simple wave-off. It's sometimes just "we don't want to spend the time to figure out how to lock down this thing."

mossTechnician 9 hours ago

Is there a notable difference between Firefox Enterprise and standard Firefox with group policy management[0]?

[0]: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/customizing-firefox-usi...

nine_k 9 hours ago

From compliance checklist point of view, there may be enough difference. Addressing it is the point.

roryirvine 9 hours ago

Sounds like there's additional governance options (notably, SIEM integration) and Enterprise SSO - but I suspect the main benefit from the enterprise pov is going to be the account management and support teams.

gcp an hour ago

Additional features and the option to deploy all supporting services on prem.

miroljub 9 hours ago

I'd rather not have Firefox installed, than Firefox preloaded with MitM certificates, disabled uBlock Origin, Proxy Switcher, added Adobe, Copilot, and a few more "useful" extensions and security add-ons that can't be disabled, and so on.

If company IT gets hold of Firefox, it's not better than just using Edge or Chrome that comes by default.

PcChip 8 hours ago

hopefully the IT department pushes out uBlock Origin with whatever browsers they require people use. I used to push it out to several customers with the Chrome GPOs... although I know it doesn't work in Chrome anymore

Sophira 8 hours ago

Of course they won't do that. That would require companies to admit that ads are a bad idea.

SoftTalker 8 hours ago

uBlock Origin requires permission to read and alter anything on any website. Although I trust it, and I don't see an alternative for something like an ad-blocker, I can see how that would be a deal-killer for corporate IT.

miroljub 7 hours ago

Yes, they prefer ZScaler which can read and modify anything on any website and network resource, even when running on localhost.

SoftTalker 7 hours ago

ZScaler comes from a vendor and a purchase agreement, uBlock Origin comes from "some guy" for free and that makes corporate folks uneasy. If Firefox would offer uBlock Origin in their enterprise version for $100/seat/month and market it as an "endpoint malware blocker for the cloud" instead of an ad blocker they'd probably get a lot of uptake.

20after4 7 hours ago

This is the best Mozilla product idea I've heard since they started trying to sell shit like VPN service.

Like seriously, Mozilla could probably make some serious revenue with this. I only wonder if it would open them up to getting sued, somehow.

limagnolia 7 hours ago

Your web browser also has the ability to read and alter anything on any website, do you trust the makers of your web browser? (And everyone else in the supply chain...)

danillonunes 5 hours ago

Not surprisingly it's easy for a organization to trust Mozilla Corporation than to trust a random Canadian guy.

limagnolia 3 hours ago

I wouldn't call Raymond Hill a "random" Canadian guy. I am also fairly certain that these same organizations rely on code written by even more obscure, random individuals every day.

rockdoe 2 hours ago

AFAIK Firefox add-ons go through review before being uploaded, so this would actually only be an issue if you don't trust both the Canadian guy and Mozilla.

marcosdumay 7 hours ago

Yet corporations are all ok with letting people use Windows, that disclaims that it can send any data on your computer to MS at any time.

autoexec 3 hours ago

It's insane how much access companies give MS. The insights they must have on so many companies by snooping on what they do in outlook and excel alone...

benhurmarcel 2 hours ago

Exactly. My company mandates Chrome or Edge with no extensions for work, and the SSO only works with these. I use Firefox in the side for browsing because IT doesn’t control it and I can block ads.

gcp an hour ago

Note that Firefox Enterprise and Firefox can live side by side, so your workflow would still work, unless your corporate admin specifically moves to block it.

alerighi 7 hours ago

If my company would tell me what browser should I use for work, I would look away from it. Fortunately all the companies I worked for didn't care what browser I use (even most people used Firefox anyway).

majorchord 6 hours ago

That's exactly what they want, because there's tons of other people dying to take your place that barely know what a browser even is, who won't complain, and who will work for less money.

don-code 5 hours ago

Obviously experiences will vary, but I have now had three organizations express concern (though not to the point of telling me I must stop) that I use third-party Firefox derivatives. This started with Pale Moon and then continued with LibreWolf.

The concern is that they "aren't authorized apps". As I've read it, this is a proxy for "we aren't certain these apps can be trusted, but nobody ever got fired for pointing the finger at Mozilla or Google when something goes wrong, but would be fired if they pointed it at this one random guy in the Netherlands".

worik 4 hours ago

At my (old) work we used Google Meet for meetings

I could not get audio on Firefox

It was the only site I ever found where I could not get audio and I suspect some Google malfeasance

When I initiated a meeting I used Jitsi, no such troubles

ltbarcly3 6 hours ago

Nobody needs 2 browsers to support on locked down computers. There's no increase in functionality apart from making between 0 and 1 extremely niche users slightly more happy (but not more capable).

anvuong 4 hours ago

That's weird. I used to work in a very secure facility (think actual air-gapped supercomputers where network access is building-LAN only) and Firefox was the only approved browser.

jiveturkey 4 hours ago

if you are air-gapped, any browser should be fine?

lukan 4 hours ago

Air gapping is not a total barrier.

(you still need to get data in and out sometimes, Chips can be misused as radio antennas, loudspeakers can be used as microphone and do ultra sonic data transmission to other devices etc, so still making sure the software is under control on the Air gapped computer sounds like a good idea)

prmoustache 33 minutes ago

You can import/export a lot of data with just sound and video.

m-p-3 4 hours ago

There are already some controls in place available, but they are often platform-specific (GPOs on Windows, Configuration Profiles on macOS) than can be pushed through Active Directory, Intune, Ivanti, etc, but this does remove some friction and configuration gaps where you can centrally manage those policies in a single location.

You'll still likely need to push something like an enrollment token for Chrome (ex: https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/9301891 ), but then the rest is done through the Firefox Enterprise console.

nijave 3 hours ago

I thought you could push a non user writable config that could control pretty much everything since... Forever?

Along with that, push extensions to add DLP bits, etc

gcp an hour ago

Yes, Firefox was already configurable through enterprise policies that an admin could deploy.

Firefox Enterprise tries to remove as much friction there as possible, and adds a pile of features like deployment monitoring, policy changes while running, device posture checks, various security features like SIEM logging, etc.

The other part is that you get the option to run all supporting services entirely on premise, so the browser never has to "phone home" to us, but you still have working updates, sync support, and so on.

Exoristos an hour ago

Large companies' IT departments claim a lot of reasons for their policies. Often the underlying reason is unstated, and has more to do with convenience of governance or with sales relationships.

PaulHoule 10 hours ago

Probably the most practical idea Firefox has had to maintain and possibly build up its market share in a long time.

shevy-java 9 hours ago

Well, you read one of their goals and visions here. That part is ok.

The question is: how is that goal turning out once it meets reality?

Tons of great ideas failed for various reasons. Alan Kay keeps on pointing out how sad he is that Xerox PARC failed in many ways. Reality is a strong selector - and the evil Google empire will make competition really, really hard here.

glenstein 8 hours ago

Right. The greatest features in the world won't necessarily dent distribution monopolies. Still, it helps to make your own luck.

PaulHoule 6 hours ago

The enterprise case can make a dent in distribution monopolies. I mean, even if Chrome is bundled all over the place for consumers, if an enterprise says "use Firefox" it can distribute it and enforce it.

At my unit of my Uni we have Windows desktops managed by central IT. As a software dev they gave me a bypass to get administrator access but they do enforce that we use Firefox ESR -- I recently got a brand new Firefox but after a while my Firefox does fall behind the times. I develop Firefox-first and let my tester find Chrome bugs, I think we find one less than once a year, over decades I've found that if you develop with the off-brand browser you have very little trouble with the dominant browser whereas if you develop with the dominant browser your product won't work with off-brand browsers. Developers like me have been keeping Firefox viable and probably cumulatively we create more enterprise value for Mozilla than Mozilla's own developers. I think Mozilla is the epitome of the badly run NGO and can criticize just about everything about it but... the cause of competition for browsers is one of the most important tech causes and it's one that isn't entirely lost. I try to only use Firefox except for YouTube which seems to be punishing Firefox users, for a long time I found Firefox compatibility was great but I have seen an increase in problems in the last year which is concentrated in banking and certain e-commerce sites, hotel booking and such. The only trouble we have with it is that we have an internal app that (for better or worse) loads 40,000 rows into a data table and performs really well on Chrome but feels pokey on Firefox.

glenstein 3 hours ago

I tried to be careful with a caveat, but you're not wrong. I think it's a good thing to chase and I hope Mozilla makes a stable long term commitment to it and doesn't expect instant results.

re: youtube, I really think it's a place where the fediverse is needed the most, and is unfortunately the weakest. I have seriously been considering something like an outreach campaign for niche categories just to build up the fediverse video universe (e.g. asking bands if they are okay with their live show videos being mirrored to fediverse, educational content, and maybe even something like a fediverse friday). Maybe a convo for another time but I think it's a huge issue where, unlike the browser wars, there's not even an obvious second best option.

jurf 5 hours ago

Not a reason not to try it. Not sure what your point is – not to do so?

ergocoder 2 hours ago

Yeah, they have the brand name already. Can sell to large traditional orgs like hospitals, governments, and etc.

Hugsbox 9 hours ago

Do I work in the twilight zone or something? The company I work for is trying to phase out Firefox, and I'm getting multiple complaints a week from non-technical users that they can't open Firefox anymore and they don't want to use any other browser.

chii 9 hours ago

people who decide on policy tend not be the same people on the ground doing real work. Therefore management makes a policy, they think they are doing the correct thing, when in actual fact, they're not, but just don't hear or get the right type of feedback (including feedback they trust to be real and isn't just the workers complaining/whinging unnecessarily).

This type of dysfunction occurs quite frequently i find.

timcobb 9 hours ago

Non-Technical users are complaining to you about how they want to use Firefox? What?

Hugsbox 8 hours ago

Yes. On a near-constant basis. Before the change it was the first thing many of them would install on newly-issued laptops.

IshKebab 6 hours ago

Maybe they're really non-technical users who figured things out in 2005 and haven't learnt a single thing since then.

timcobb 6 hours ago

I was wondering if this is the cohort what else could it be?

WorldMaker 5 hours ago

My father avoided Chrome this way. Liked Firefox back in the day and had no desire to switch since.

hobo123 5 hours ago

I've switched browsers countless times and I always end up back with Firefox.

Ok, I'm German, so maybe it's genetic.

hbn 4 hours ago

How does he feel about the big new redesign?

Hugsbox an hour ago

This is a real possibility, if I think about the average age of many of them.

nloomans 8 hours ago

Are those customers from Germany maybe? Germany has really high Firefox market share compared to basically any other country.

jpalawaga 8 hours ago

as the family techie, I recommend tech and that's what sticks with them. Recently, it's Firefox.

I wouldn't be surprised if those people had some techie in their life advising similar! and/or, they just really want decent adblock tech.

driverdan 7 hours ago

> The company I work for is trying to phase out Firefox

Why?

cube00 4 hours ago

One less app to manage, audit and provide end user support.

Hugsbox an hour ago

Bingo.

Kuyawa 10 hours ago

Does it block ads like Brave without installing extensions? Tracking is one of the worst plagues of modern browsing so blocking all kinds of tracking and fingerprinting should be the first concern in an enterprise. Nothing should leak to the outside world

rockdoe 10 hours ago

This feature ships in Firefox for a few years IIRC? https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enhanced-tracking-prote...

I agree with the other person though that you should install uBlock Origin in Firefox (which works better there than in Chromium based browsers) and never look back.

tokai 10 hours ago

If its first concern why would you use a browser that has ben caught injecting affiliate codes?

ahartmetz 9 hours ago

Note: that browser is Brave, I think the downvoters might have been confused

ahartmetz 10 hours ago

Well, just install the fucking extension in Firefox. There is nothing else that is as good as uBlock Origin. E.g. Reddit prevents you from reading unless you log in? There's a filter for that in an "annoyances" block-list that you can activate.

austhrow743 9 hours ago

Can people working at places that don’t let them install Firefox without an enterprise contract just go and install extensions?

traverseda 9 hours ago

Firefox already had a very mature policy management engine, it just didn't have a nice gui and would require like ansible or something to use.

It allows forcing specific extensions on, and allowing user installs is a flag.

I use the policy engine on nixos to install some plugins and disable some of firefox's dumber features.

asdff 2 hours ago

You'd think from a security perspective IT would even preinstall ublock origin.

kotaKat 9 hours ago

I wanted to, but my dumbass global IT department directly blocks uBlock Origin, Origin Lite, and AdBlock by extension IDs. Chrome, Firefox, Edge, the works.

I cannot even begin to fathom that stupid fucking decision from someone above me.

coldpie 9 hours ago

My company's security dept briefly (briefly!) put GCC on the banned software list. Yes, that GCC. Buncha big brainlords in that dept.

Telaneo 9 hours ago

How did that work out for them?

coldpie 9 hours ago

Probably took them some time to clean up all of the the Work Stoppage tickets that every dev in the company filed, lol.

rockdoe 8 hours ago

I've been doing consultancy for OSS development and one in-between company asked me to sign a contract that had a random clause in it somewhere that banned the use of OSS for work.

When I pointed this out, they said "just ignore that part".

Nope LMAO!

Wowfunhappy 8 hours ago

...if you are told in writing (say over email) to ignore a part of the contract, can you do that? Does that part no longer apply?

jacquesm 7 hours ago

You can strike a clause and then both parties countersign next to the strike mark on all copies and it will hold up in court.

Even so I would advise you to have the lawyers re-draft the entire thing.

worik 4 hours ago

You can change a contract before you sign it

Let the other side know, ensure you make the change clear and initial the change. 8f they sign the contract too, your change sticks

In my country, anyhow

rockdoe 2 hours ago

It took a while to point out all the other stupidity in the contract (this wasn't the only part, just the most blatantly silly) and I ended up taking another one.

vivaldi_bt 8 hours ago

>just install the fucking extension

...and this is/was the true Firefox way. You don't need to get some other browsers on the same engine made by shady companies. You have powerful plugins.

curt15 9 hours ago

It doesn't ship with a blessed adblocker, but firefox + ubo is still the gold standard.

VCFundedGenYer 8 hours ago

Is this a real question?

It takes literally two seconds to install uBlock Origin.

You can even preload it by baking in the xpi file.

RunSet 8 hours ago

If you are unable / unwilling to install an extension, Librewolf includes and enables uBlock Origin by default.

https://librewolf.net/

It is a Firefox fork with sane, user-respecting defaults. Of course it breaks sites that do not respect their users' privacy / agency.

ormax3 3 hours ago

Firefox supports policies for enterprise deployment, the ability to install extensions (like uBO) has been available for a long time:

https://mozilla.github.io/policy-templates/#extensions

https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Deploying-uBlock-Orig...

Grimeton 4 hours ago

Not exactly new...

https://github.com/mozilla/policy-templates/releases

wicket an hour ago

Here's an easier way to view the release history: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/products/firefox-enterpris...

gcp 36 minutes ago

You can pretty much see Firefox Enterprise as the easy-to-use, supercharged version of this + optional on-premise deployment of sync etc.

koolba 7 hours ago

Hell yah. This is exactly the type of thing they need to do to take their mouths off the teats of advertising companies like Google.

Make privacy at the enterprise level the first class feature.

Too bad people won’t pay for any of this.

sdcfgy 10 hours ago

I can't think of a single enterprise who I have worked with or know who'd pay for this when there's Chrome or Edge available.

ndegruchy 10 hours ago

There's already Island browser that competes in this space. Plenty of companies pay for browser control that goes beyond what the normal policies can provide.

ahartmetz 9 hours ago

You can't think of an enterprise that doesn't want all of its web browsing metadata collected by third parties? Some enterprises are much more security-conscious than that. I have seen protected paper trash bins in a research lab and office buildings with X-ray scanners (mainly for electronic devices, not weapons).

TiredOfLife 9 hours ago

That's what enterprise edge and probably also chrome do already.

ltbarcly3 6 hours ago

Nobody cares about that and also puts their devices on the internet. Literally nobody.

ryukoposting 12 minutes ago

Governments come to mind. European ones, especially.

endgame 2 hours ago

I really hope this works - it could provide sustainable alternate revenue streams for Mozilla, entrench alternative browsers into large deployments, and isn't some hare-brained half-baked idea that damages trust in its existing user base. Godspeed.

simonebrunozzi 2 hours ago

And Thunderbird Enterprise! A pity that Thunderbird is still full of unsolved bugs, and it went from being an amazing email client to one of the worst ones. What a pity.

rkagerer 5 hours ago

Can someone expound on the DLP features? E.g.:

Can you do basic string pattern matching to prevent leaks of sensitive data?

In the case of a credit card, for instance, how would you distinguish between a user legitimately "buying something on a website" from "posting customer card to a forum" or "sending to a chatbot" (or even "inappropriately making purchase with customer card")?

Can you match the data itself against an allow/flag/deny list?

Can you run data through a local or corporately-situated LLM instructed to "Assess whether this looks potentially sensitive" via a given set of rules, and flag it to the user or a supervisor to proceed/abort?

How extensive are in-built features, and what kind of hooks and feedback/UI interaction is available for third party integrations?

gcp 29 minutes ago

Yes. You have some control by including/excluding certain sites from the rules, i.e. you could exclude common shopping sites from the CC rules, and we imagine most folks trying to stop (accidental) exfil through AI chatbots are going to block most common providers there.

Warning (instead of blocking) is possible. Due to the security logging (plus, if wanted, SIEM integration) you get the flagging.

Not in the first version, but this is an area we are working in.

what kind of hooks and feedback/UI interaction is available for third party integrations?

We support the standard SDK for this which is also used by Chromium based products:

https://hacks.mozilla.org/2025/03/improving-firefox-stabilit...

That's how Trellix and Broadcom integrate with it as well.

timcobb 9 hours ago

Finally something that makes sense from these guys!

jklinger410 2 hours ago

Every single ounce of sweat put towards an AI feature or redesign or side project (anon email) should have been put towards this, and implemented, a long time ago. And this will ACTUALLY make them more money, and allow them to actually build a better browser.

zecg 10 hours ago

Does this mean they will remove "AI controls" (i.e. a way to completely shut all LLM shit off) from normal Firefox?

sunaookami 10 hours ago

No, why would you think that?

cowsandmilk 10 hours ago

The page literally says

> AI controls — allow, restrict or disable AI tools

So the answer is yes, no need for making up a cynical answer.

rockdoe 10 hours ago

I think that just means https://blog.mozilla.org/en/firefox/ai-controls/ will be administrator controlled in Enterprise settings. As in, the admin can force-disable all that stuff.

llm_nerd 10 hours ago

Ignoring that a feature page for a tier can include features from other "tiers", they're explicitly describing central governance and configuration of this.

So the answer is no, no need for reading tea leaves and making stuff up.

And I mean, does everyone here know that Firefox is open source?

malfist 9 hours ago

Features aren't a zero sum game. Enterprise can have a set of features, and the consumer version can have the same feature. Turn the example around. Enterprise Firefox will render HTML. That does not mean the consumer version will have the ability to render HTML removed.

So the answer isn't yes. The answer is we don't know if they will or will not remove the feature from non-enterprise, but it doesn't seem likely.

sunaookami 7 hours ago

The answer is not yes, why are you spreading bs? It's just an extra feature item on the list, there is nothing that gets removed in the "normal" Firefox.

VCFundedGenYer 8 hours ago

If you actually read the article you'd see the up-front bullet point that allows for it.

coldpie 8 hours ago

Can you point to where specifically in the article it says that:

> they will remove "AI controls" from normal Firefox

which is the question the original poster asked?

sunaookami 7 hours ago

You need to work on your reading comprehension.

ashenke 10 hours ago

They list this as a feature in the submission page.

sfink 8 hours ago

No. Are you thinking that was a feature intended to appeal to corporate use or something? I'm pretty sure it was all about AI backlash. It's still a popular setting to have available. (I have no idea how many people actually use it.)

driverdan 7 hours ago

You can already turn everything off under Settings -> AI Control. Personally I keep Translations on so I can translate locally instead of calling external services.

gcp 23 minutes ago

There are no such plans.

(Regardless of one's feelings about generative AI, I think some features like local translation or alt text are too nice to be labeled "LLM shit", but I admit I am biased)

SloopJon 8 hours ago

I'm sure this is great for improving adoption on the admin side, but I'm also sure that I would hate using a locked-down Firefox.

My company has management software that nags me about the latest Firefox version, which is annoying, because I use the extended support release instead. Less frequent updates, and fewer sudden changes like the AI features people have been grumbling about.

Incidentally, 153.5.0esr was released today, with 140 reaching EoL.

penguin_booze 8 hours ago

I don't know. Like another comment here says, some companies have been blocking Firefox because it's difficult to bend it to their will. For them, a browser has always meant one thing: Chrome. With Firefox entering the mix now, it's going to be 'yet another browser when we already have one'. Most corporate admins, I'd think, will say 'no, thanks'.

hobo123 5 hours ago

I once had to work with group policy FF that prevented me from configuring the way FF started. I wanted it to keep the session, but instead it always started with a blank slate. Mind-blowingly stupid.

dzonga 10 hours ago

this is move that should have been done a long time ago + with a bundled vpn or equivalent of a tailscale in the browser.

Mozilla would have made tons of money.

lenerdenator 9 hours ago

Hopefully they still can. Healthy Firefox == healthy browser market.

rockdoe 9 hours ago

Someone dropped the following link, which seems to have way more detail than the press releases: https://www.firefox.com/en-US/firefox/enterprise/158.0/relea...

It looks like they do actually offer that as a feature: "Employees can access internal company sites and web apps from personal devices without a device-level VPN"

Edit: To give proper credit, the link is from Heise.de

gcp 21 minutes ago

Firefox Enterprise does include similar functionality :-)

projectescape 4 hours ago

I feel like people don't take the Chromium monopoly seriously. Sure, Brave is great, but it's still chromium, making Google have outsized say over how the web behaves. Manifest V3 was the proof, every Chromium browser had to live with it. If this helps Firefox gain ground, I'm all for it.

projectescape 4 hours ago

Haven't had any reason to not use firefox since quantum

nicfio 2 hours ago

I'm working on a demanding project that has performance as a fundamental requirement. Unfortunately Firefox turned out to be disappointing: audio/video codecs not supported or supported badly, and decidedly poor performance. Chrome instead is decidedly on another level. My opinion is that firefox prefers the road of features, neglecting the care of performance, and maybe this also depends on the fact that Mozilla doesn't have a big company behind it like chrome has google. It's a big problem, because on this road I don't see a great future for firefox, and we would end up on a road of de facto monopoly, which is not good for anyone.

gcp 18 minutes ago

Always happy to get bug reports about audio/video playback issues or performance gaps. We have a built-in profiler that makes it very likely we can narrow down the cause and fix it: https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/performance/reportin... ... IF someone actually submits a bug with a profile.

mosdl 6 hours ago

20 years too late unfortunately. They turned their backs on enterprise when the Netscape org was killed off and lost a lot of momentum because of that.

levkk 6 hours ago

No such thing. Business, like history, goes in circles.

ihuman 8 hours ago

How is this different from autoconfig.js, firefox.cfg, and other `defaults/pref` options? Orgs can already use that to manage and lock down Firefox preferences, ban/force extensions, and more

edelbitter 5 hours ago

The current policies are not very enterprise-friendly yet.

Some settings are flat out refused (for "security reasons"). And with each new update there are a few new popups / invitations to try this new feature / re-enabling the v2 of the thing of which the v1 was already opted out in the policy. And it seems like you cannot apply new policy while the browser is running - meaning it cannot be used to roll out hotfixes without interrupting the work of currently unaffected workstations.

And then there is the syncing. If you want to manage & sync history, bookmarks and the password managers content.. you are probably going to find that easier by overriding the builtin features with 3rd-party extensions, as the builtin sync feature is very much tailored to the needs of privately owned devices and one-device-at-a-time usage patterns.

rockdoe 2 hours ago

And it seems like you cannot apply new policy while the browser is running - meaning it cannot be used to roll out hotfixes without interrupting the work of currently unaffected workstations.

The changelog linked above seems to hint this is specifically fixed/a new feature in the Enterprise version:

"Many policy-driven changes can take effect without restarting the browser."

gcp 15 minutes ago

a) it's much easier to work with b) you have much more monitoring possibilities c) it adds a pile of features d) you can host all supporting services (sync, updates, telemetry, etc) on premise - if you want

vjvjvjvjghv 44 minutes ago

The typical enterprise "Request a demo" without clear pricing. I think a company like Firefox should lead and publish pricing. I know IT guys are used to this but where I can make decisions this is an immediate showstopper.

CodesInChaos 10 hours ago

No public price information. I wonder how much they charge.

boesboes 10 hours ago

That's how you know it's enterprise!

jqpabc123 10 hours ago

If you have to ask the question, you're probably not going to like the answer.

krautsauer 9 hours ago

You sure? Maybe I like Mozilla getting some money?

jqpabc123 9 hours ago

Don't look now but Mozilla has been getting plenty of money. Money by itself is not an issue.

And it's not just me. Looking at market share, most users are clearly underwhelmed with how they use their money.

danillonunes 5 hours ago

The money Mozilla gets from Google comes with some sort of gentlemen's agreement where they try to avoid disrupting Google's business. It's nice if they diversify their revenue so they can become more independent.

thaumasiotes 2 hours ago

> Don't look now but Mozilla has been getting plenty of money. Money by itself is not an issue.

This isn't quite a complete argument; getting money from funding sources who have strong opinions about your behavior can mean that you can't afford to do some things you might otherwise like to do, even if your bank account at any given moment may look like it would cover those things.

InsideOutSanta 10 hours ago

It's enterprise, so the cost is 500k unless you don't want to pay so much, then it's 50k.

KingOfCoders 10 hours ago

Or the sales rep needs to make their quarterly numbers.

gustavus 10 hours ago

Now this is the kind of Mozilla project I can get behind it focuses on the browser it gives a potential path for revenue and I practically jumped up and down when they announced their bringing in Thunderbird.

Solid props to Mozilla for this one. Good job.

stuff4ben 10 hours ago

Right?!? There's a lot of negative sentiment on the comments here on HN but probably from people that don't understand locked down corps and other higher-security work environments where these features are needed. Plus not relying on Microsoft/Google is always a good thing. I can definitely see this being useful in hospitals, government orgs, etc.

mxuribe 10 hours ago

100% agreed, that this is a great idea for Mozilla! Maybe its not exciting like some new tech....but to those who like firefox and/or support open source offerings, digital sovereignty, etc....and also want to have that as an option at their enterprise, i think this is really good! Now, the hope is that orgs tap into it (so it can keep growing), plus i sure hope Mozilla manages this right...but overall, i think this is very encouraging, and I for one am very happy to see it being offered!

kevincox 10 hours ago

Not only revenue but enterprise users are valuable market share. Think of things like Slack calling which last I checked don't work in Firefox unless you spoof the user-agent. More enterprise users will force better Firefox support in a huge variety of websites which will benefit all Firefox users.

t_mahmood 9 hours ago

Yes, this is good move. I am not getting why are people being up in arms, if they are getting fund from this, it will help improving Firefox, and resolve pain points the complainers have.

All in all good thing, why are they so mad.

alicelik1980 8 hours ago

It looks good, but it's hard to break habits.

unethical_ban 6 hours ago

Anything that makes enterprise management of FF easier is a win for the browser environment.

That said, I'm seeing enterprise security companies selling soft forks of Chrome with all sorts of inspection and policy built in. Basically, instead of doing DLP/URL filtering/risk management on a MITM box, they're pushing it to the browser. This helps remove the need for TLS decryption, and the need to funnel their browser traffic to any particular tunnel endpoint.

I guess what I'm saying is... Firefox might want to take a look at what those companies are doing to Chrome and figure if there is a way to make it easy to plug that kind of security into their browser.

edit: just noticed this is a paid service. So I triple down on what I said. Companies that are "buying" browsers are buying browsers with deep inspection and security features baked in. I don't know if they'll buy support for FF when Edge is free.

rockdoe 2 hours ago

Native DLP is specifically listed as a feature FYI, also mentions compatibility with Broadcom and Trellix.

Edit: "website filtering" too

gcp 2 minutes ago

What do you specifically mean with "risk management"? Device posture?

I think we hit all the features you mention but not sure about the above.