Mozilla Introduces Firefox Enterprise
173 points by recvonline 3 hours ago | 86 comments

DoctorOW 38 minutes 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.
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nine_k 23 minutes ago
For general-purpose use this may be true. For specialized Wrb-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.
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graemep 6 minutes ago
Change the icon to look like Chrome?
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rockdoe 4 minutes ago
MSIE style internet globe or GTFO
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nicoburns 2 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.
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insin 54 minutes ago
The large business I work for cited low usage when they blocked it from being installed a couple of years back.
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LeBit 38 minutes 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.

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kakacik 9 minutes 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.

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miroljub 6 minutes 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 :)

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graemep 5 minutes ago
At the very least they would have less work to do.
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Foobar8568 34 minutes ago
I gotta love to get "for security/safety" reasons, and yet I get ads on anything served. Bonus points for YouTube.
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rockdoe 28 minutes 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."
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mossTechnician 34 minutes 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...

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roryirvine 23 minutes 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.
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nine_k 29 minutes ago
From compliance checklist point of view, there may be enough difference. Addressing it is the point.
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miroljub 7 minutes 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.

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PcChip 18 seconds 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
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PaulHoule 2 hours ago
Probably the most practical idea Firefox has had to maintain and possibly build up its market share in a long time.
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shevy-java 22 minutes 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.

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Hugsbox 26 minutes 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.
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timcobb 14 minutes ago
Non-Technical users are complaining to you about how they want to use Firefox? What?
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chii 16 minutes 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.

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Kuyawa 2 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
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ahartmetz 2 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.
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austhrow743 56 minutes ago
Can people working at places that don’t let them install Firefox without an enterprise contract just go and install extensions?
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traverseda 44 minutes 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.

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kotaKat 31 minutes 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.

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coldpie 26 minutes ago
My company's security dept briefly (briefly!) put GCC on the banned software list. Yes, that GCC. Buncha big brainlords in that dept.
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rockdoe 4 minutes 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!

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Telaneo 18 minutes ago
How did that work out for them?
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coldpie 13 minutes ago
Probably took them some time to clean up all of the the Work Stoppage tickets that every dev in the company filed, lol.
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rockdoe 2 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.

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curt15 26 minutes ago
It doesn't ship with a blessed adblocker, but firefox + ubo is still the gold standard.
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tokai 2 hours ago
If its first concern why would you use a browser that has ben caught injecting affiliate codes?
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ahartmetz 2 hours ago
Note: that browser is Brave, I think the downvoters might have been confused
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Mirek_G 17 minutes ago
[flagged]
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timcobb 15 minutes ago
Finally something that makes sense from these guys!
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sdcfgy 2 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.
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ahartmetz 56 minutes 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).
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TiredOfLife 42 minutes ago
That's what enterprise edge and probably also chrome do already.
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ndegruchy 2 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.
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lirolero 2 hours ago
[dead]
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zecg 2 hours ago
Does this mean they will remove "AI controls" (i.e. a way to completely shut all LLM shit off) from normal Firefox?
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sunaookami 2 hours ago
No, why would you think that?
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cowsandmilk 2 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.

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rockdoe 2 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.
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malfist 2 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.

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llm_nerd 2 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?

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ashenke 2 hours ago
They list this as a feature in the submission page.
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dzonga 2 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.

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rockdoe 31 minutes 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"

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lenerdenator 60 minutes ago
Hopefully they still can. Healthy Firefox == healthy browser market.
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CodesInChaos 2 hours ago
No public price information. I wonder how much they charge.
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InsideOutSanta 2 hours ago
It's enterprise, so the cost is 500k unless you don't want to pay so much, then it's 50k.
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KingOfCoders 2 hours ago
Or the sales rep needs to make their quarterly numbers.
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boesboes 2 hours ago
That's how you know it's enterprise!
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jqpabc123 2 hours ago
If you have to ask the question, you're probably not going to like the answer.
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krautsauer 29 minutes ago
You sure? Maybe I like Mozilla getting some money?
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jqpabc123 16 minutes 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.

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gustavus 2 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.

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stuff4ben 2 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.
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mxuribe 2 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!
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kevincox 2 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.
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t_mahmood 2 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.

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shevy-java 24 minutes ago
They are trying. But it won't work.

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.

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ChoGGi 10 minutes ago
What do ad/tracker extensions do to that stat tracker?
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ex1fm3ta 34 minutes ago
Yesss this was needed so much.
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SuperNinKenDo 2 hours ago
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.

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chrismorgan 55 minutes ago
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.
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s17tnet 2 hours ago
And yet, still no simple way to self host the their syncserver (syncstorage-rs) without the mozilla account abomination.
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soco 2 hours ago
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...
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darkwater 52 minutes ago
It's the good old "open source software adds feature X but what about feature Y I want??"
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locitra 26 minutes ago
[flagged]
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1970-01-01 2 hours ago
[dead]
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InsidiousWombat 2 hours ago
> Firefox Enterprise puts customer privacy, independence and control first.

So what before came as main advantage of Firefox is now dropped and put behind the paywall?

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jqpabc123 2 hours ago
Firefox Enterprise puts customer privacy, independence and control first.

Thanks for the open admission that regular Firefox does not.

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Telaneo 57 minutes ago
No, they do not infact hate pancakes.
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rockdoe 2 hours ago
Pretty sure that's Firefox in contrast to the other alternatives in the Enterprise space.
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LtWorf 2 hours ago
"control first" to the IT department instead of the user.
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fractalf 2 hours ago
Once again Mozilla invents stuff noone wants. Its just incredible how an "org" with so much income fails again and again
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evolve2k 2 hours ago
They need to try. I also feeling like there’s likley growing demand globally; like they mentioned. A need for greater digital sovereignty.
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jqpabc123 2 hours ago
It's income they don't really earn.

Like a rich kid living on daddy's money, they're somewhat disconnected from the reality that most people exist in.

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user3939382 46 minutes ago
Mozilla sold out its values with ads, telemetry etc hence the existence of LibreWolf, which should have no reason to exist.

I manage these types of decisions and won’t use it.

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gamegod 28 minutes ago
For all the garbage Mozilla puts out, this is actually a good idea.
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sixhobbits 2 hours ago
every announcement I see from Mozilla makes me happier that I switched to WaterFox last year and don't have to deal with their shit any more
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auslegung 2 hours ago
What do you dislike about this announcement?
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zecg 2 hours ago
How they list "AI controls — allow, restrict or disable AI tools" which Firefox now has under Enterprise, but not normal version.
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ashenke 2 hours ago
There is a AI menu in Firefox where you can disable individual AI features, as well as a single toggle to disable every current and future features.
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GrinningFool 2 hours ago
You can already do that in regular firefox. I think in this case, it's adding the capability to enable/disable via policy at the enterprise level.
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malfist 2 hours ago
Firefox does have a setting to disable all AI features. It's in your settings: Settings > AI Controls > Block AI Features
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