Disabling Buttons In Preferences

Oct 22, 2014

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I get asked a lot how to disable certain buttons in preferences like Make Firefox the default browser or the various buttons in the Startup groupbox. Firefox does have a way to disable these buttons, but it’s not very obvious. This post will attempt to remedy that.

These buttons are controlled through preferences that have the text “disable_button” in them. Just changing the preference to true isn’t enough, though. The preference has to be locked, either via the CCK2 or AutoConfig. What follows is a mapping of all the preferences to their corresponding buttons.

pref.general.disable_button.default_browser: Advanced->General->Make Firefox the default browser

pref.browser.homepage.disable_button.current_page

General->Use Current Pages

pref.browser.homepage.disable_button.bookmark_page

General->Use Bookmark

pref.browser.homepage.disable_button.restore_default

General->Restore to Default

security.disable_button.openCertManager

Advanced->Certificates->View Certificates

security.disable_button.openDeviceManager

Advanced->Certificates->Security Devices

app.update.disable_button.showUpdateHistory

Advanced->Update->Show Update History

pref.privacy.disable_button.cookie_exceptions

Privacy->History->Exceptions

pref.privacy.disable_button.view_cookies

Privacy->History->Show Cookies

pref.privacy.disable_button.view_passwords

Security->Passwords->Saved Paswords

pref.privacy.disable_button.view_passwords_exceptions

Security->Passwords->Exceptions

As a bonus, there’s one more preference you can set and lock – pref.downloads.disable_button.edit_actions. It prevents the changing of any actions on the Applications page in preferences.

Comments

4 responses to “Disabling Buttons In Preferences”

tapper

October 22, 2014

Hi what are you talking about? Is this about firefox? desktop, phone, android, on mac or linux

Reply
1. Mike Kaply
  
  October 23, 2014
  
  Firefox desktop
  
  Reply
Rob

November 10, 2014

Other userful settings:

network.automatic-ntlm-auth.trusted-uris (NTLM Authentification for intranet etc.)

extensions.autoDisableScopes “0” if you want to activate every extentions (e.g. Antivir client – Trend Micro etc.)

extensions.enabledAddons “{d10d0bf8-f5b5-c8b4-a8b2-2b9879e08c5d}” if you want to enable e.g. Adblock Plus

browser.cache.disk.smart_size.enabled “false” if you want to disable automatic cache management

browser.cache.disk.capacity “0” set cache to Zero
browser.cache.disk.enable “true” to disable changing the cache (if not set also capacity will change back to default)

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Andrew

December 8, 2023

I found this article quite helpful, even though it was posted a little over ten years ago. There are a few disable_button preferences not listed in the article that I have come across, presumably because they are newer than the article. I’ve listed them along with my description of what best I can figure, with the aid of this article they do in FF 115ESR. I’m looking for any feedback on my descriptions as to whether I’ve figured correctly, or where I’ve figured incorrectly, and in particular with the two that I was unable to figure out, what buttons they disable.

pref.advanced.proxies.disable_button.reload
Disables or enables the “Reload” button in the Hamburger menu -> Settings -> General -> Network Settings -> Settings… For this setting to work it must be locked either via the CCK2 or AutoConfig.

pref.browser.disable_button.current_page
I haven’t been able to figure this one out but it does exist in the code for FF 115ESR. Any ideas on which button this disables?

pref.browser.language.disable_button.down
Disables or enables the “Move Down” button in the Hamburger menu -> Settings -> General -> Language -> Choose… For this setting to work it must be locked either via the CCK2 or AutoConfig.

pref.browser.language.disable_button.remove
Disables or enables the “Remove” button in the Hamburger menu -> Settings -> General -> Language -> Choose… For this setting to work it must be locked either via the CCK2 or AutoConfig.

pref.browser.language.disable_button.up
Disables or enables the “Move Up” button in the Hamburger menu -> Settings -> General -> Language -> Choose… For this setting to work it must be locked either via the CCK2 or AutoConfig.

pref.privacy.disable_button.change_blocklist
Another one I’m not sure about. It is in the source and a couple of others to do with cookies are with it, so I think it has to do with a blocklist for cookies from certain sites. I’m just not quite sure what button it is to disable.

pref.privacy.disable_button.tracking_protection_exceptions
Disables or enables the “Manage Exceptions…” button in the Hamburger menu -> Settings -> Privacy & Security -> Enhanced Tracking Protection. For this setting to work it must be locked either via the CCK2 or AutoConfig.

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Disabling Buttons In Preferences

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4 responses to “Disabling Buttons In Preferences”

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