greg hughes - dot net

I'm a dual-browser kind of guy. Honestly, I use Internet Explorer most of the time, and Firefox is in my backup slot. Recently security concerns have been pretty evenly divided between the two, and I am not married to one browser or another - I just use what works best for me at the time.

The one thing that tends to keep IT administrators from deploying Firefox across their companies in many cases is the complete lack of a process and ability to patch and update the software.

Well, IT admins, worry no more. Someone's been thinking about how to help.

FrontMotion has created a MSI installer for Firefox 1.0.4 that can be deployed via Active Directory - just like any MSI installer - and a set of accompanying ADM files that you can deploy as extensions to your group policy, in order to be able to exercise the level of control necessary in a corporate environment. You can download them here.

FrontMotion's Firefox Community Edition is Firefox with the ability to lockdown settings through Active Directory.  Similar to lockdown with mozilla.cfg on one computer, you can now use our Community Edition to set settings across your organization by loading Administrative Templates. Both the firefox.adm and mozilla.adm file can be loaded at the same time.

For those who want or need to do an Active Directory deployment:

• Download the MSI installer and save it to a network location accessible by client computers (e.g. a network share on a domain controller).
• Create or edit a Group Policy Object (GPO). Right click on an Organizational Unit (OU) or your top level domain, then Properties.  In the Group Policy tab, click New to create a new Group Policy or Edit. (Note: If you have an existing deployment of Firefox MSI, you should Edit an existing GPO)
• Edit the GPO and navigate to Computer Configuration -> Software Settings -> Software Installation
• Add the new package, specify the location of the Firefox MSI on a network share. (e.g. \\server\appinstalls\firefox\firefox-x.x.x.x.msi)
• If you are doing an upgrade, be sure to specify the older packages in the Upgrades tab in the new package's properties.