Disabling Buttons In Preferences

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”

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

    1. Mike Kaply Avatar
      Mike Kaply

      Firefox desktop

  2. 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)

  3. 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.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *