I have changed computers a few times recently, and setting up Firefox the way I like is pretty tedious, and comes after setting up Windows the way I like. Obviously, I have a lot of tweaks, customizations, and add-ons I want to bundle together.
I could use a portable app on a drive and take it everywhere, but on one of the new PCs, it's corporate and I don't want to stick my dongle in there and risk losing something from some random overhystemic malware scan.
I did some research and it seems Internet chatter on the topic has died off in recent years, and I'm not sure if that's because something won, or because Firefox is losing market share.
I would like for a single installer, maybe a secondary installer, to set things up the way I like. I'd prefer something like The Tor Browser Bundle does, where it has extensions preloaded with certain settings preconfigured. Maybe later I'd like to repackage TBB itself, but for now I'd settle on vanilla Firefox.
I primarily use Windows, mostly 7, some 2012 R2, and now 10. Other platforms would be icing on the cake.
I'm looking for some advice on which is the modern way to do this, and preferably a single tool that will output a new installer. However, Mike Kaply's method where you install Firefox, and then load the config will probably work, if I can get it to remember where extension icons are placed in the UI. I'm not sure it can do that yet, but it seems like it can do everything else.
I've stumbled across:
- FFDeploy, which died in 2005
- FirefoxADM, which is geared towards managing an install with GPO (not what I want to do)
- This article describing my requirements, but offering no solutions
- An extension to let you manage Firefox through Group Policy
- An old conversation with dead links and links to projects that have stalled and died, some of which are redundant in this list.
- A page talking about making an MSI, which is usually made for deployment via GPO
- FrontMotion Firefox Community Edition, another tool to manage Firefox through AD/GPO
- WinCert, a tool which I'm not sure what it is or does, but came from another similar SuperUser Q&A
- Mike Kaply's tool CCK2 (GitHub), which has no public documentaion, but seemingly is still supported. His blog was also linked on another SuperUser Q&A, and talks about some really geeky ways of customizing things. Ghacks article, and a short walk through.
- Mike Kaply also had an article with a lead in to autoconfig
- I found some developer resources, but they only give the relevant bits, so I'm missing a lot.
- I found something called mozilla.cfg and this article, which was also linked to in a SuperUser Q&A
Related info
http://windowsitpro.com/group-policy/enterprise-rollout-and-management-firefox
