Bug#763132: iceweasel: add options that allow to disable downloading+installation of add-ons/extensions/themes/plug-ins

Christoph Anton Mitterer calestyo at scientia.net
Sun Sep 28 03:03:53 UTC 2014


Package: iceweasel
Severity: wishlist


Hi,

Could you please add two sets of options, each for add-ons/extensions/themes/plugins
(i.e. all kinds of code that can be downloaded/installed from the web).

One set of option should control system-wide, whether users are allowed to download
add-ons/extensions/themes/plugins (and/or have those, which have somehow been placed
manuall in ~/.mozilla being used) or not (and the respective dialogues (e.g. "Get
Add-ons", "Install Add-On From File") and options ("Check for updates") shouldn't
appear then).

The idea behind this is, that Debian has it's package management system, from where
(ideally) these addon packages should be provided and which are under security support
and retrieved in a secure way from upstream.
System administrators may want to forbid their users to directly download/install
arbitrary code from locations outside of the distro's archives, even if it's only from
mozilla.org (I mean basically everyone can upload addons there, and no one will ever
check what they actually do).

Of course it must also be assured, that an add-on/extension/theme/plugin, which is
installed system-wide via a package, isn't tried to be updated by a user, effectively
only creating a new installation of the respective thing in the user's local ~/.mozilla

Of course these settings must be set in a place, which can't be controlled by normal
users but only by root.

A second set of options (though less important) could be that each single user can
decide for himself, whether he wants those online download+install stuff to be enabled
or not.


Maybe this functionallity should actually go even directly into upstream,...


Cheers,
Chris.

btw: Since this affect's basically all Mozilla products, I'll clone the bug
for icedove.
I guess iceowl is dead upstream, isn't it? What about iceape? It doesn't seem to be in
sid, but it would be affected as well.



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