168321 - Mozilla allows user to bypass Proxy settings established by Administrator

Status: VERIFIED DUPLICATE of bug 125995

(Core :: Networking, defect)

Description

[DJR]

I love the Mozilla browser but can not deploy it because it does not respect the
Proxy settings set by the Administrator under System Preferences in OS X.

IE and OmniWeb both read the Proxy settings set in the System Preferences but do
not allow the user to change them inside the Web Browser. Our company uses a
filtering proxy to ensure that the employees don't end up where they shouldn't
be on the web (and I know people that employ this technique at home as well to
keep kids where they shouldn't be). Mac OS X System Preferences only allows the
ADMINs of the machnine to make changes to the Proxy settings. IE and OmniWeb
both respect those settings and do not allow the user to change them within the
web browser. All the Mozilla builds ignore these system preferences and allow
the user to completely bypass this network security. It doesn't seem that hard
for the OSX builds to grab the proxy settings from the System Preferences
network setting and not allow the user to change them from within the browser.

For us, this is a show stopper preventing deployment of Mozilla browsers and
recommending them to others.

Comment 1

[Jo Hermans]

for the import of the system preferences, dupe of bug 125995

Are you serious about not allowing people to edit their proxy settings ? What
about the people from bug 161989 ? I hope that you're not using this for
security. : it's much too easy to circumvent (I found a workaround for both
Internet Explorer and OmniWeb).

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 125995 ***

Comment 2

[benc]

-> networking.

Mozilla has some preference locking features. I don't know much about the
technical details, you might want to look in prefs or ask around on IRC.

Realistically, though you cannot use end user and preference locking to get what
you want, you need a proxy-only network configuration. What clients can do, is
make sure they have features that support being a good network citizen in that
environment.