739932 - Provide a way to disable Firefox Sync

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 586985

(Firefox :: Sync, enhancement)

Description

[Kohei Yoshino [:kohei]]

I've heard some companies don't want their employees to use Sync. There should be a single pref, lockable via MCD, to disable the functionality like this:

> lockPref("services.sync.enabled", false);

Comment 1

[Allison Naaktgeboren :ally]

MCD?

Comment 2

[Richard Newman [:rnewman]]

https://developer.mozilla.org/en/MCD,_Mission_Control_Desktop_AKA_AutoConfig

Comment 3

[Kohei Yoshino [:kohei]]

Yes, that's the standard way enterprises can centrally control Firefox preferences on their clients.

My idea is: if the pref has been set as false,

1. the Set Up Sync menu item in the Tools menu will be disabled (or hidden)

2. the Sync preference panel will have a simple message says "Firefox Sync has been disabled by your system administrator."
e.g. http://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/browser/locales/en-US/chrome/browser/browser.properties#24

3. the keyboard shortcut will be disabled, if exists

4. the backend will also be disabled

Thoughts?

Comment 4

[Gregory Szorc [:gps]]

Your suggestions look good to me.

There has also been talk of removing Sync from ESR releases. However, I agree that a central pref to disable the world would be useful outside of ESR.

Comment 5

[Allison Naaktgeboren :ally]

ibai tells me ESR already disables sync, though he did not say how. :gps, do you know anything about it?

Comment 6

[Gregory Szorc [:gps]]

I just installed ESR 10.0.3 and Sync is there.

We suspect that most ESR installers disable Sync by disabling access to the Sync server or locking other Sync preferences (like services.sync.account).