Customize Firefox using policies.json

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  • Revision id: 298197
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  • Creator: Greg Stoll
  • Comment: fix link to Group Policy page
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  • Reviewed by: AliceWyman
  • Is approved? Yes
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This article is intended for IT administrators who wish to set up Firefox on the computers within their organization.

Policy support can be implemented using a JSON file called policies.json. Unlike controlling Firefox with using Group Policy, the policies.json is cross-platform compatible, making it preferred method for enterprise environments that have workstations running various operating systems.

To implement this policy support, a policies.json file needs to be created. On Windows, create a directory called distribution where the EXE is located and place the file there. On Mac, the file goes into Firefox.app/Contents/Resources/distribution. On Linux, the file goes into firefox/distribution, where firefox is the installation directory for Firefox, which varies by distribution - or you can specify system-wide policy by placing the file in /etc/firefox/policies.

The policies.json file looks like this: 

{
 "policies": {
   "BlockAboutConfig": true
 }
}

In this example, we are setting the BlockAboutConfig policy to true, which means that the user will not have access to the about:config page.

The latest information about our policies is available at https://mozilla.github.io/policy-templates/ or on the about:policies#documentation page in Firefox.

NOTE: The above method will not work if Firefox is already being managed using Group Policy.