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For an organization still using XP, and that plans to continue using XP for at least another year, do you think it would be better to switch to Firefox 4 or continue to use IE8? Is Firefox configurable via GP? Patchable via WSUS or Local Update Publisher? What do you think?

Ben Pilbrow
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Shawn
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5 Answers5

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No, you cannot control FF via GPO (without an add-on or script) or update via WSUS. You may be able to push patches with SCCM, but that would be overkill if you don't have it in your environment. In short, unless you have an explicit need for FF, or something is totally incompatible with IE in your environment, stick with IE if you want ease of updates.

DanBig
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  • Some Firefox settings can be controlled via GPO, but you can't configure as much. -- http://sourceforge.net/projects/firefoxadm/ – Zoredache May 10 '11 at 19:48
  • This is simply not true. There are adm templates that exist for Firefox (although for FF4 it might be harder to find). Having said this, it ain't easy (like with IE). http://www.frontmotion.com/Firefox/fmfirefox.htm – GregD May 10 '11 at 19:50
  • SCOM is for monitoring, not centralized management; that's SCCM. – Massimo May 10 '11 at 19:50
  • Made a couple changes, thanks to Zordache and Massimo – DanBig May 10 '11 at 19:51
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If you're configuring settings with group policy and updating via WSUS, IE7/8/9 is really your only option.

You can do the same thing with Firefox to some degree, but it will require a lot of not-particularly-pleasant scripting.

Hyppy
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Your best bet is really to use Internet Explorer if you're using WSUS and GPOs. IE is much more manageable than FF or even Chrome from a policy standpoint and updates through WSUS are a no brainer.

While FF can be managed with adm templates (they exist), it's much harder to lock it down and manage FF.

GregD
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You can definitely use Local Update Publisher to install and patch Firefox. I'm the developer of LUP and I do that very thing. I would recommend using FrontMotion's MSI installers and creating your own MST transform file.

Bryan Dam
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  • do you know of any websites that might give further details as to how LUP can be used with FF, using FrontMotion, or any other helpful information? – Chris S May 11 '11 at 13:05
  • Bryan, love your software. Its worked great for deploying Reader and Flash, just looks like more work to get FF to work. – Shawn May 11 '11 at 13:38
  • Deploying FF is really simple if you use the MSIs from FrontMotion. Just use the MSI rules that get automatically created and that's it. For more info go to [http://www.localupdatepublisher.com](http://www.localupdatepublisher.com). The documentation wiki is your best source of info and has a page specifically for FF. – Bryan Dam May 13 '11 at 15:26
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Is Google Chrome an option for you?

It has some basic GPO support: http://www.edugeek.net/forums/internet-related-filtering-firewall/31278-using-google-chrome-network.html

Pete White
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