Firefox has been taking out options from its settings for years now. Making it more and more difficult to control and/or customize built in features.
As a result the way to enable or disable features you want or don’t want is to use a policies.json file.
A few thing to keep in mind when adding/creating a policies.json file are
- You have to create the file, it is not installed by default.
- If and when you update firefox the file will be removed, and you will need to re-add/recreate it (which why I am writing this post).
- After you create the file, any changes you make to it in the future, you will need to restart firefox for the changes to take effect.
- You can use the policies.json file for both Firefox standard edition, and Firefox Developer Edition.
Below you will find the entries I use most often, keep in mind, leaving comments in .json files is not a standard practice so I will be explaining each entry below to better understand what is happening.
policies.json File Example:
{
"policies":
{
"DisableAppUpdate": true,
"DisableTelemetry": true,
"DisableSystemAddonUpdate": true
}
}
How to install/create policies.json file
This is only applicable to Firefox & Firefox Developer Edition v. 8.0 and up
Create a a directory named [distribution] and a file named [policies.json] located at:
[C:\Program Files\Firefox Developer Edition\distribution\policies.json]
Here are the simple steps to follow.
- Close Firefox and open its installation directory/folder.
- Right-click on the Firefox shortcut icon on your PC and select “Open file location.
- Under the installation directory, create a subdirectory named “distribution.”
- Then create a JSON file and name it policies.json .
Note: Due to permissions, you may need to create the file on your desktop or documents directory then move it to this directory.
Open notepad and paste the code below into it, Save the file as policies.json .
Here are a few more ways to get into what firefox is doing
about:telemetry
about:preferences#privacy
about:config
Here are a few links to look at for more information about finding and controlling what firefox does.
Disable telemetry via about:config -> https://github.com/K3V1991/Disable-Firefox-Telemetry-and-Data-Collection
