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.
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.
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. :)
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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."
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).
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.
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
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.
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...)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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".
...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.
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.
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.
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'.
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.
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).
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.
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
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
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
So much negativity in here. I mean, I get the antipathy toward Mozilla, but they're trying to find a way to make the actual browser a revenue stream. Yeah it could skew incentives or something, but unless you believe that you, and everyone you know is ready to start a paid subscription to Firefox Personal tomorrow, it's something like this, or more Google deals and pushing "service" integrations.
Seriously, this place is so damn negative these days, but not even constructively.
Mozilla as an organisation is rotten and genuinely needs to die, so that Firefox can live. The only thing from Mozilla that people care about is Firefox, but Mozilla doesn’t care about Firefox to a quite stunning degree. As an example: four or five years ago they announced laying off a quarter of their 1,000 employees, and declared what they were going to be focusing on: none of it was related to Firefox in any way (and most of it they’ve since shut down). And it should go without saying that you don’t need 750 employees to make a browser, and probably can’t effectively use even a hundred.
I think if you really want to build something like that,
you need real momentum. Perhaps the ladybird folks can
succeed here, the future will tell. I don't think Mozilla
has enough momentum left.
The number of people using web browsers has gone up massively though over the past 15 years. 2%-3% right now isn't as bad as it would have been in the past
Are you using, or planning to use, the Enterprise version, and feel like this functionality is missing? Or is the complain about the regular release? I'm asking because I fail to see the link...
This landing page smells like AI slop. I hate it not because it's AI generated, but the fact that reading more doesn't give me any further understanding.
>Firefox Enterprise. Different at the core. Stronger because of it.
[Edited: typo]
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.
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. :)
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.
[0]: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/customizing-firefox-usi...
90% of my colleagues use Microsoft Edge without extensions.
Other browsers are seen as exotic.
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.
People don’t care about optimizing every little thing.
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.
Would they get a raise if they are more efficient? Or go home earlier? Well, you have your answer here :)
If company IT gets hold of Firefox, it's not better than just using Edge or Chrome that comes by default.
Like seriously, Mozilla could probably make some serious revenue with this. I only wonder if it would open them up to getting sued, somehow.
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.
This type of dysfunction occurs quite frequently i find.
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.
Why?
Make privacy at the enterprise level the first class feature.
Too bad people won’t pay for any of this.
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.
I cannot even begin to fathom that stupid fucking decision from someone above me.
When I pointed this out, they said "just ignore that part".
Nope LMAO!
...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.
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.
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.
It takes literally two seconds to install uBlock Origin.
You can even preload it by baking in the xpi file.
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.
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.
Mozilla would have made tons of money.
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
> AI controls — allow, restrict or disable AI tools
So the answer is yes, no need for making up a cynical answer.
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.
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?
> they will remove "AI controls" from normal Firefox
which is the question the original poster asked?
Solid props to Mozilla for this one. Good job.
All in all good thing, why are they so mad.
And it's not just me. Looking at market share, most users are clearly underwhelmed with how they use their money.
Seriously, this place is so damn negative these days, but not even constructively.
I think if you really want to build something like that, you need real momentum. Perhaps the ladybird folks can succeed here, the future will tell. I don't think Mozilla has enough momentum left.
https://www.digitalapplied.com/blog/browser-market-share-202...
Firefox is between 2% and 3% now.
https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/phasing-out-the-o...
Like a rich kid living on daddy's money, they're somewhat disconnected from the reality that most people exist in.
Thanks for the open admission that regular Firefox does not.
So what before came as main advantage of Firefox is now dropped and put behind the paywall?
Page says a lot of nothing. Or just restates things that already were in place.
I manage these types of decisions and won’t use it.
>Firefox Enterprise. Different at the core. Stronger because of it.
What's this even means