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I deploying the latest version of Firefox to my company and wanted to grey out/disable the sync option ...can anyone help me with this please?

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  • Last reply by cor-el

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I want to disable/grey the sync feature so that users cannot have this functionality as per my companies security policies...is this possible?

I want to disable/grey the sync feature so that users cannot have this functionality as per my companies security policies...is this possible?

All Replies (9)

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hi daneklad, please refer to http://kb.mozillazine.org/Locking_preferences for a method to lock certain preferences when deploying firefox. in your particular instance, you'll want to set services.sync.enabled to false...

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Hi,

Thanks for the quick reply....i have this all setup with regards to the config file etc...i had tried to input the services.sync.enabled to false, but when i launch firefox again, it still appears and gives me the option to sign in and sync a device....

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can you check if the lock file really applies, by entering about:config into the firefox addressbar and seeing if "services.sync.enabled" is displayed in italics there and in a locked state?

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I can confirm that it is applying as the "services.sync.enabled" is showing as a locked feature which i cant change in the browser

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ok, so this might only apply to the old sync service in use until firefox 29. you could try locking these prefs as well:

lockPref("services.sync.serverURL", "");
lockPref("services.sync.engine.addons", false);
lockPref("services.sync.engine.bookmarks", false);
lockPref("services.sync.engine.history", false);
lockPref("services.sync.engine.passwords", false);
lockPref("services.sync.engine.prefs", false);
lockPref("services.sync.engine.tabs", false);

it will still be possible to sign up/login in the user interface then, but any real syncing should be made impossible then - please double-check that with a real account though...

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Note that you can also run JavaScript with chrome privileges via mozilla.cfg, so you can consider to disable the about:accounts page.

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I have tried the cck2 to import the preferences but this does not work. It doesn't change any of the preferences specified....

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I found that by going to about:config and double clicking on the entries I wished to lock, they would toggle to the desired state.

By logging in to Firefox on another machine, I was able to confirm that while logged in to the same account, I was unable to sync Firefox between the two machines: Adding favorites in one or the other did not sync, Remembering passwords did not sync between the machines.

As yet, I am not sure where this configuration information is maintained, as the contents of the mozilla.cfg file did not change.

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Note that you can also set String prefs services.sync.*URL to an empty string value to prevent connecting to the Sync server via a lockPref() call.