New: Extension to hide extensions

sancomp · Post by **sancomp** » July 29th, 2006, 10:08 pm

My first extension, but it works. I've only tested it on Fx 1.5 to 1.5.0.5 so far, so that's all the RDF file lists it for, but it may work for other versions as well.

This extension will hide any extension from extension manager by reading registry values that can be written to with a group policy. Targeted for IT administrators looking to stop users from uninstalling or even disabling certain extensions on their systems. It includes a readme file on how to set up the Administrative Templates (I'm designing some templates myself right now).

See my discussion of what I was trying to accomplish <a href="http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?p=2400017#2400017">here</a>.

Is this something I should publish to mozilla.org? I've never done this before. I will be putting this on my own company website before the night is over if anyone is interested. Not sure if posting the link here would violate forum rules, though.

greenknight · Post by **greenknight** » July 30th, 2006, 2:24 am

Try submitting your extension to Mozilla Add-ons, it might just be accepted. For help: http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Extensions

sancomp · Post by **sancomp** » July 30th, 2006, 8:29 am

Thanks. That link didn't seem to help though. I wound up going to <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/developers/main.php">https://addons.mozilla.org/developers/main.php</a> instead.

In the meantime, am I wrong in assuming there would be a demand for a corporate-ready Firefox, with everything manageable by GPOs (not just browser preferences)? I'll keep working on it. This was just one aspect. It's just about done now.

Schrade · Post by **Schrade** » July 30th, 2006, 11:21 am

Oh you're definitely not wrong. This would be a very handy extension indeed.

Zoolcar9 · Post by **Zoolcar9** » July 30th, 2006, 12:09 pm

Also: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... 66#2216666
and http://userstyles.org/style/show/361

sancomp · Post by **sancomp** » July 30th, 2006, 12:10 pm

Well apparently it isn't as ready as I thought. At 2:00 in the morning it appeared to be working perfectly. Now, it hides the extensions you set one time, then unhides them on the next startup (and refuses to hide anything else after). Backups don't work either, even on fresh install.

Obviously I'm still unclear about how to use the "prototype" property properly and the change is being "unregistered" (if that's the right word). Anyone familiar with this who can help? I'm so close...

greenknight · Post by **greenknight** » July 31st, 2006, 3:52 am

sancomp wrote:Thanks. That link didn't seem to help though. I wound up going to <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/developers/main.php">https://addons.mozilla.org/developers/main.php</a> instead.

In the meantime, am I wrong in assuming there would be a demand for a corporate-ready Firefox, with everything manageable by GPOs (not just browser preferences)? I'll keep working on it. This was just one aspect. It's just about done now.

Odd about that link, I tested it and it took me right to the Extensions page. In any case, there's a link on the main page to the extensions page, where you'll find links to lots of useful stuff for the extension developer.

Mozilla is very interested in making their products more attractive to the enterprise user. If you can work the bugs out of your extension, I think it's a shoe-in.

sancomp · Post by **sancomp** » July 31st, 2006, 7:06 am

Well, I've run into a brick wall here. And I'm not going to have much time to do anything with it this week, but I'd really like to see this work. Anyone want to take over for me or at least look at the code and give me some pointers? I don't care so much about the credit as seeing this thing just %$@*ing work!

aaron · Post by **aaron** » July 31st, 2006, 10:22 am

I can see both sides of the issue here on this extension... I think it would be useful for admins to prevent users from certain extensions.

But it could also be used in conjunction with the Downloader-AXM trojan (http://www.mozillazine.org/talkback.html?article=12722) -- which could be very bad.

sancomp · Post by **sancomp** » July 31st, 2006, 11:12 am

aaron wrote:I can see both sides of the issue here on this extension... I think it would be useful for admins to prevent users from certain extensions.

But it could also be used in conjunction with the Downloader-AXM trojan (http://www.mozillazine.org/talkback.html?article=12722) -- which could be very bad.

Thanks for pointing that out. However, I don't believe this would cause a problem in this case (though I'd have to do some testing). The extension I'm working on would only hide extensions set by a group policy at the server level.

I suppose that a Trojan could use similar code to what exists in this extension to hide itself, but they can do that already... in theory.