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Mozilla Introduces Firefox Enterprise

144 points recvonline 1 hour ago 71 comments

sixhobbits 1 hour ago | parent

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

auslegung 1 hour ago | parent

What do you dislike about this announcement?

zecg 1 hour ago | parent

How they list "AI controls — allow, restrict or disable AI tools" which Firefox now has under Enterprise, but not normal version.

malfist 1 hour ago | parent

Firefox does have a setting to disable all AI features. It's in your settings: Settings > AI Controls > Block AI Features

ashenke 1 hour ago | parent

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.

GrinningFool 1 hour ago | parent

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.

gustavus 1 hour ago | parent

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 58 minutes ago | parent

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 47 minutes ago | parent

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 48 minutes ago | parent

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 42 minutes ago | parent

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.

s17tnet 1 hour ago | parent

And yet, still no simple way to self host the their syncserver (syncstorage-rs) without the mozilla account abomination.

soco 1 hour ago | parent

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...

darkwater 30 minutes ago | parent

It's the good old "open source software adds feature X but what about feature Y I want??"

CodesInChaos 1 hour ago | parent

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

boesboes 1 hour ago | parent

That's how you know it's enterprise!

jqpabc123 1 hour ago | parent

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

krautsauer 8 minutes ago | parent

You sure? Maybe I like Mozilla getting some money?

InsideOutSanta 1 hour ago | parent

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

KingOfCoders 50 minutes ago | parent

Or the sales rep needs to make their quarterly numbers.

InsidiousWombat 1 hour ago | parent

> 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?

jqpabc123 1 hour ago | parent

Firefox Enterprise puts customer privacy, independence and control first.

Thanks for the open admission that regular Firefox does not.

rockdoe 54 minutes ago | parent

Pretty sure that's Firefox in contrast to the other alternatives in the Enterprise space.

LtWorf 47 minutes ago | parent

"control first" to the IT department instead of the user.

Telaneo 36 minutes ago | parent

No, they do not infact hate pancakes.

zecg 1 hour ago | parent

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

sunaookami 1 hour ago | parent

No, why would you think that?

cowsandmilk 54 minutes ago | parent

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 50 minutes ago | parent

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 48 minutes ago | parent

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 40 minutes ago | parent

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.

ashenke 1 hour ago | parent

They list this as a feature in the submission page.

sdcfgy 1 hour ago | parent

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 1 hour ago | parent

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 34 minutes ago | parent

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 21 minutes ago | parent

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

cloudbonsai 9 minutes ago | parent

I actually did this sort of stuff (so-called enterprise browser solution) as part of my day job a decades ago.

It may sound like a super-specific niche, but there are active market demands for it.

fractalf 1 hour ago | parent

Once again Mozilla invents stuff noone wants. Its just incredible how an "org" with so much income fails again and again

jqpabc123 54 minutes ago | parent

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.

evolve2k 51 minutes ago | parent

They need to try. I also feeling like there’s likley growing demand globally; like they mentioned. A need for greater digital sovereignty.

Kuyawa 58 minutes ago | parent

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 57 minutes ago | parent

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 54 minutes ago | parent

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

ahartmetz 42 minutes ago | parent

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

ahartmetz 44 minutes ago | parent

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 35 minutes ago | parent

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

traverseda 22 minutes ago | parent

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.

kotaKat 9 minutes ago | parent

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

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

curt15 5 minutes ago | parent

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

SuperNinKenDo 54 minutes ago | parent

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.

chrismorgan 34 minutes ago | parent

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.

PaulHoule 46 minutes ago | parent

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

nicoburns 46 minutes ago | parent

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 32 minutes ago | parent

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

LeBit 16 minutes ago | parent

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.

Foobar8568 12 minutes ago | parent

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

rockdoe 6 minutes ago | parent

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 13 minutes ago | parent

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 7 minutes ago | parent

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

dzonga 45 minutes ago | parent

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 38 minutes ago | parent

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

rockdoe 10 minutes ago | parent

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"

user3939382 25 minutes ago | parent

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.

DoctorOW 17 minutes ago | parent

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.

ex1fm3ta 12 minutes ago | parent

Yesss this was needed so much.

gamegod 7 minutes ago | parent

For all the garbage Mozilla puts out, this is actually a good idea.

Hugsbox 4 minutes ago | parent

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.