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.

[Edited: typo]

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.

> people are going to try and install Chrome at all costs

Mozilla might have anticipated this when they wrote "Diversify your browser engine" as one of the selling points.

https://www.firefox.com/en-US/enterprise/firefox-enterprise/...

Diversification is a good idea, personally I use both Chrome and Firefox every day (and sometimes Lynx).

Change the icon to look like Chrome?

We used to install FF and Chrome on the local PCs at work to ensure this would not be an issue. The office workers just used Edge.

I tried for a year to use it before just switching to Brave and getting the best of both worlds.

I'm so old I still feel like Chrome is new.

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There are already some controls in place available, but they are often platform-specific (GPOs on Windows, Configuration Profiles on macOS) than can be pushed through Active Directory, Intune, Ivanti, etc, but this does remove some friction and configuration gaps where you can centrally manage those policies in a single location.

You'll still likely need to push something like an enrollment token for Chrome (ex: https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/9301891 ), but then the rest is done through the Firefox Enterprise console.

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...

That's weird. I used to work in a very secure facility (think actual air-gapped supercomputers where network access is building-LAN only) and Firefox was the only approved browser.

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).

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

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.

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.

Are those customers from Germany maybe? Germany has really high Firefox market share compared to basically any other country.

Non-Technical users are complaining to you about how they want to use Firefox? What?

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.

> The company I work for is trying to phase out Firefox

Why?

as the family techie, I recommend tech and that's what sticks with them. Recently, it's Firefox.

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.

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.

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.

If you are unable / unwilling to install an extension, Librewolf includes and enables uBlock Origin by default.

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

Is this a real question?

It takes literally two seconds to install uBlock Origin.

You can even preload it by baking in the xpi file.

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

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Haven't had any reason to not use firefox since quantum

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'.

I once had to work with group policy FF that prevented me from configuring the way FF started. I wanted it to keep the session, but instead it always started with a blank slate. Mind-blowingly stupid.

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.

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No such thing. Business, like history, goes in circles.

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.

They list this as a feature in the submission page.

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.)

No, why would you think that?

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"

Edit: To give proper credit, the link is from Heise.de

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

The current policies are not very enterprise-friendly yet.

Some settings are flat out refused (for "security reasons"). And with each new update there are a few new popups / invitations to try this new feature / re-enabling the v2 of the thing of which the v1 was already opted out in the policy. And it seems like you cannot apply new policy while the browser is running - meaning it cannot be used to roll out hotfixes without interrupting the work of currently unaffected workstations.

And then there is the syncing. If you want to manage & sync history, bookmarks and the password managers content.. you are probably going to find that easier by overriding the builtin features with 3rd-party extensions, as the builtin sync feature is very much tailored to the needs of privately owned devices and one-device-at-a-time usage patterns.

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

That's how you know it's enterprise!

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

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.

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.

All in all good thing, why are they so mad.

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 guess it's the age old "people want everything for nothing" anti-capitalism trope that never actually works out in their favor.

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

What do ad/tracker extensions do to that stat tracker?

Its 5.3% on desktop the same as Safari. I wonder what this means in real numbers.. perhaps hundreds of millions? That's not bad.

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...

>Professional Support included — private triage and defined response times

This one sounds new to me.

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

No, they do not infact hate pancakes.

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

... That doesn't make any kind of sense whatsoever. Firefox puts customer privacy first, now that includes enterprise customers. Like how do you even possibly come to this conclusion. Mind boggling.

That just sounds like generic marketing-speak to me. That stuff never did mean anything.

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

> Once again Mozilla invents stuff noone wants.

https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/phasing-out-the-o...

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.

What do you dislike about this announcement?