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How to force Private browsing using Registry?

bmendoza
bmendoza
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Hello. I manage about 1000 PCs that need to have Private Browsing forced to protect end user Information. I can't use MS GPOs because these PCs log in with a local user account. Is there a way to force Private browsing on the PCs by adding a registry string to all of the PCs that could be deployed (SCCM) by running a .CMD file? Please advise. Thanks for your time.

Hello. I manage about 1000 PCs that need to have Private Browsing forced to protect end user Information. I can't use MS GPOs because these PCs log in with a local user account. Is there a way to force Private browsing on the PCs by adding a registry string to all of the PCs that could be deployed (SCCM) by running a .CMD file? Please advise. Thanks for your time.

All Replies (1)

Wesley Branton
Wesley Branton
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You could do this with an AutoConfig file. See Customize Firefox using AutoConfig.

It would need to have the following code: 

// IMPORTANT: Start your code on the 2nd line
lockPref("privacy.history.custom", true);
lockPref("browser.privatebrowsing.autostart", true);

What will lock the history preference in the settings to custom and automatically enable private browsing mode (although the purple icon will not appear like in normal private browsing mode).

The only thing is that I don't believe it's possible to prevent the user from selecting history drop-down setting in the Firefox options. So, the user can still go in and select Remember my history. However, because Always use private browsing mode is locked, it will prompt the user to restart Firefox. When Firefox opens, their changes are overwritten and it will be back to the custom setting with private browsing mode locked.

This configuration would be packaged into a customized Windows installer and then could be deployed on Windows via SCCM.

Hope this helps.