Why did the schools remove Firefox rather than enforcing no-DoH in the Firefox config files (not about:config)?
[0] https://dxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-release/source/modules/libpr...
[1] https://dxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-release/source/browser/app/p...
[2] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Firefox/Ent...
[3] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/products/firefox-enterpris...
this stuff about finding all the right config files during "basic hardening" and having it just work is the stuff of armchair commenters and people who do IT/security on a well funded, sufficiently redundant team. assuming the latter would be the people in charge of school IT is hopelessly naive.
...which reinforces my point about how people actually doing this and people speculating about it tend to respond to issues like this.
I take it you assume students are not creative enough to get the exact same result with Chrome? Because it is perfectly possible to do it. Unless of course you take steps to prevent that in Chrome. One way or another you either put in the work or the users will end up doing whatever they please. After configuring the OS doing the same for the browser is a relatively small step.
i'm belaboring this point now, but people who actually do this stuff know that you can't just throw up a GPO to fiddle with chrome settings and expect everything to work. this culture of "power users" thinking they know the best course of action for every situation in IT (and it's always "that thing i Put In The Work to do when i was tailoring my own system") is really silly.
I thought we were talking about how hard it is to fix Firefox. This can be done on a budget - part of an afternoon - since it can be very easily managed with a plain old config file copied to all machines (at least until a couple of versions ago). With this gone you're left with Chrome. How would you make sure no user can use any one of the multiple options to abuse a non-managed Chrome and bypass this? Remember that your target isn't to have a browser that doesn't mess up filtering, it's to prevent students from using any (creative) means to access restricted material. And with Chrome there's one sure way to prevent those creative means. So don't answer, it will be GPOs.
And since your fix for DOH and DNS filtering is to uninstall the browser (!) when Chrome eventually implements it will make for an interesting conversation ;).
as for once chrome implements DOH, they'd cross that bridge when they came to it. it's an uphill battle, because really content filtering, of course, should not be done through browser settings (remotely managed or otherwise), nor solely through DNS. if whoever tells IT what to do in that school district is hellbent on it being impossible to browse to pornhub, they'll ultimately need a layer 7 firewall. but again, when you're on the budget, you do fastest / cheapest / most effective.
(and if we return to pure hypothetical, i would argue that dns filtering really is the best way in their case, because anyone who could bypass that--besides just using firefox--will be able to bypass better chrome config, or your firefox config change, etc, since they can just edit host file, etc etc etc)
The problem with half assed work is that you still put in some effort but reap none of the rewards. You work to uninstall Firefox from dozens of computers but get exactly 0 results because now you’ll have to configure Chrome. Default installations of both browsers are perfect for home use but woefully inadequate for controlled networks.
And in the end you put in just about as much effort as changing some flags in any one of the dozens of example config files available on the internet and copying it on every machine.
Perhaps because he's describing 2 different situations. One where "some schools" are removing Firefox, and one where it's not an option for him because of BYOD. Uninstalling Firefox is exactly the solution he can't apply. So I still maintain that the other schools that fully control the clients could have applied a proper fix faster and cheaper than any uninstall. It's one line in a config file [0], already linked above.
All your replies are gratuitously aggressive and insulting. That's not a good way to contradict my solution that works, is simpler and more future proof than uninstalling browsers with DOH.
Eventually all browsers will have DOH, you can't uninstall them all. And leaving a browser unmanaged and at the mercy of a student is not an option since requiring 2 extra clicks to bypass the filtering isn't a solution. You need some form of management either way.
I already gave you a solution that's better than removing the browser and "cheaper" than having to manage Chrome with GPOs (not a high bar). Insults won't change that.
[0] https://dxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-release/source/modules/libpr...
of course, you would need to do more in chrome (and windows/osx/ubuntu generally) to stop traffic to a site if a student knows what they're doing. that's not the point. the point is: we have this control in place. we've agreed it's working well enough. people can bypass the control simply by using firefox. to avoid adding overhead, we ditch firefox (for now). it's that simple.
as for future-proofing, that's a luxury. ...and part of why it's a luxury is that some goals ("make all traffic to any porn sites impossible on our school network") just aren't going to be met by budget IT.
re: BYOD, for that i go over to the armchair tech purist side i'm afraid, and just say "well, you allow that, so you need to get over that they can use VPNs and stuff. you're not DOJ or some wealthy corporation with important IP assets and equally 'important' VIP execs that insist on bringing their OSX 10.6 MBP to work. you don't get to have all the cool controls that might allow BYOD. sorry."
They were better off uninstalling Chrome. Firefox at least can be controlled with a config file and a script to do bulk copy, Chrome wants GPOs and without lockdown you have a ton of extensions in the store to make your DNS filtering redundant. I believe the latter is the better option but if a config file is beyond the possibilities of the school admin I expect their browsers to be fully unmanaged and at the mercy of the user. It can't be both ways.
I appreciate that you finally confirm what I said from the beginning: It is a half assed job (because doing it properly "is a luxury"). Uninstalling just kicks the problem down the road and lets "future you" deal with it a few days or weeks later.
> an app which is out of the box functionality
Begs the question why put in effort to install then uninstall it when there was no need for either. I'm not in their head but one thing's for sure, your explanation relies on conflicting argumentation. We're talking about a hypothetical Schrödinger's admin that at the same time both has and hasn't got the resources to do the work.
Cheerio.
- Implement a proxy to break SSL.
- Configure the browsers to disable DOH (GPO or local configuration) for as long as it's an option.
- remove all browsers because that's the solution you already have in place.
I wholeheartedly disagree with any resolution that just hides or ignores the issue especially when it's scheduled to become more or less standard.