Firefox's about:policies page
Mozilla added a Policy Engine to Firefox 60.0 to help organizations with the deployment of the Firefox web browser. Aimed at organizations, most policies are available in home environments as well.
While Firefox 60 does support the Windows Group Policy as well, it is the Policy Engine that is favored by many as it is operating system agnostic.
Administrators can create policy files manually or use the excellent Enterprise Policy Generator for that instead which simplifies things significantly.
About:policies lists all active policies, displays errors the engine encountered when it parsed the policy file, and policy documentation.
about:policies
Mozilla plans to include the internal page about:policies in Firefox 63 to list enabled policies in the browser, list errors, and provide documentation on the feature.
Firefox 63 will be released on October 23, 2018 according to the Firefox release schedule.
You can verify the version with a click on Menu > Help > About Firefox. Note that this may perform a check for updates as well. Another option that you have is to load about:support and check the version on that page instead.
Just type about:policies to open the new interface in the active tab in the Firefox browser. Firefox lists all active policies on start. Policies are sorted into groups to improve identification.
Note that it is not possible to edit policies on that page; the page is informational only.
An "Errors" link is displayed if any of the policies of the policies file threw errors when the policies were loaded into the Firefox browser. The Errors page is not displayed if there are not any.
Administrators can open about:policies to check for errors quickly. Errors are listed with information so that it is usually straightforward to correct them. The error message highlights the policy that is erroneous and offers a short description of the error. The two policies on the screenshot above could not be applied because they had invalid parameters.
Documentation is the third and final link that is on the about:policies page. It lists all supported policies, a short description, and even some example code or information to assist with the implementation of the policy.
Closing Words
Firefox 63 is the target for the new about:policies page. The page serves two main purposes: to list active policies so that users and administrators can identify all policies that are active easily from within Firefox, and to highlight any errors in the policy file itself so that administrators can correct those before the policies get deployed to user systems.
The new page is a welcome addition to Firefox as it improves the visibility of policies in Firefox and helps administrators verify policy files before deployment.
I’ve just discovered something concerning about:policies, here on Firefox 76.0.1
I’ve always used Firefox Policy Templates, all in policies.json copied to the [Firefox Install folder]/Distribution, and chose my templates with the ‘Enterprise Policy Generator’ Firefox extension.
Surprise : I’m discovering that the policies included in policies.json do not appear in about:policies/Active
Trying to find out more about Firefox Enterprise Policies I discovered that templates may be included (Windows only) in [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Mozilla\Firefox]
From there on, I’ve set a template ther to check out if it would figure in about:policies/Active …
and it does.
For instance,
—
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
; Firefox Policies
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Mozilla\Firefox]
“CaptivePortal”=dword:00000000
—
shows ‘CaptivePortal false’ in about:policies/Active
BUT,
“policies”: {
“CaptivePortal”: false,
},
in policies.json (built with the excellent ‘Enterprise Policy Generator’ (to be sure it wouldn’t be a user’s mistake) does NOT show up in about:policies/Active
This is for whom may be concerned.
Hello Sir!
How to enable enterprise polices in Tor Browser 9.0?
Please help, thank you!
Here my setup that I would recommend to some user:
{
“policies”: {
“DisableAppUpdate”: true,
“DisableFirefoxStudies”: true,
“DisablePocket”: true,
“DisableTelemetry”: true
}
}
FYI: I improved the design of the about:policies page in bug 1483431 and bug 1487557. Only small changes but I think it looks much better now. Especially the design of the active policies page was buggy before. I hope you like the changes. ;-)
Just updated ‘Enterprise Policy Generator’ to ver. 4.0
Many policies require Firefox 62+ (I’m running 61).
This is a very nice work, Sören, need to say. Makes choosing, setting, saving, recalling policy templates a breeze.
The first screenshot shows an odd (IMO) detail: duckduckgo has been explicitly blocked from accessing the camera
I wonder what prompted such a policy rule. This detail in the screenshot insinuates that someone has, along the way, actually noticed duckduckgo attempting to gain camera access… which seems doubtful
It is probably just from a test policies file and not something from real use.
This was all but very well said but not well done folks. But I have been Administering, Designing and Consulting on business electronics for over 35 years and I have a Masters in CS and $200K in Certs from Microsoft all the way back to DEC, and I a master Novell CNE as well as a MCSE. And look, I see this is insane,
All I did was give my “USED to BE” Favorite browser a “click” on Its okay for FireFox to use my browser for NONE INTRUSIVE testing which it was apparently unclear on that subject. I suddenly was surprised with the: about:policies/documentation. which contained a wonderful list of very nice policies and I am sure very useful if your managing an ENTERPRISE.
It took me 15 min to asses whether or not and where it came from as to would cause me immediate or long term usage issues on ????????? why because I did not ASK for it !!!! and it did not say use you for testing, it “said my FF browser”. I am fighting with Microsoft over the same issue. Some asshole CEO’s out there believes in there own arrogance so much that they don’t to ask IF the user of their product(s) wished to be controlled or needs to be controlled by an outside entity anymore. THEY just do it!!!! That is not right and it needs to stop.
And no you can’t sell my personal information “which I should not have to ask” you should have to ask me if you can!!!!!
I started using Firefox Policy templates as soon as they were made available, first manually by referring to https://github.com/mozilla/policy-templates/blob/master/README.md then more easily with the excellent indeed ‘Enterprise Policy Generator’ mentioned in the article.
To be noted that ‘Enterprise Policy Generator’ explains the policies, includes those requiring FF62 or FF63, creates the policies.json file which is then to be loaded by the user and will have to be copied in his Firefox install folder / subfolder named ‘Distribution’ : ‘Enterprise Policy Generator’ does not automatically set policies.json in that folder, which is normal.
Using therefor here on Firefox 61.0.2 Firefox’s Enterprise policies, flawlessly, together with Autoconfig (config.prefs & config.js) described at https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/customizing-firefox-using-autoconfig
About:policies isn’t metioned in about:about and also not in https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Firefox/The_about_protocol
I just get a blank page, I have been trying to access it over the last few weeks without success, anyone think of anything that would stop this page displaying?
I am using today’s Nightly and have policies active, that are working as desired, and listed as active on about:support but still nothing is shown on about:policies.
I had a blank page at first as well but a restart fixed it for me.
I have restarted daily for weeks, same result every time, oh well, at least the policies I set are working, I have them set via the json way, but that shouldn’t be relevant I’d assume.
@jupe – FYI: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1472528 – says it was “fixed 63” one day ago. I’m not on Nightly, so no idea.