{"id":1437,"date":"2013-10-19T01:20:43","date_gmt":"2013-10-19T08:20:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/surfrock66.com\/?p=1437"},"modified":"2013-10-30T15:11:14","modified_gmt":"2013-10-30T22:11:14","slug":"using-firefox-as-a-thin-app-for-a-specific-web-site","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/surfrock66.com\/?p=1437","title":{"rendered":"Using Firefox as a Thin-App for a Specific Web-Site"},"content":{"rendered":"

Objective:<\/p>\r\n

Certain websites were coded to use features and be optimized for Mozilla?s Firefox Browser. These websites utilize strict W3C HTML components which do not render properly in Internet Explorer, or rely heavily on javascript code which runs sluggishly across all versions of Internet Explorer (and impacts the system performance in other applications). Due to the organization?s security policy, the only browser allowed is Internet Explorer. Firefox is specifically disallowed for the following reasons:<\/p>\r\n

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  1. Patching ? Firefox updates frequently (every 6 weeks) and as a result keeping it up to date creates support overhead for the various desktop teams.<\/li>\r\n\t
  2. Management ? Firefox is not natively customizable through Group Policy, and Mozilla?s recommendation is to configure the browser through scripting. This conflicts with our existing management and DSO compliance policies. <\/li>\r\n\t
  3. Compatibility ? If Firefox becomes the default browser on user machines, it may create compatibility issues with other apps that require Internet Explorer, specifically certain clinical applications. <\/li>\r\n\t
  4. Testing ? All existing production<\/i><\/u> applications have been tested against the enterprise standard browser. Compounding on previous compatibility concerns, existing production<\/i><\/u> applications may have to undergo testing against an additional production<\/i><\/u> scenario. <\/li>\r\n<\/ol>
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    Some of the above mentioned concerns are mitigated with a modified installation of Firefox that prevents the user from opening other pages, navigating away from hard-coded URLs, and removing identifying information that the program is actually running inside Firefox. The procedure for creating such a Firefox Thin-App for a web-app is defined below.<\/p>\r\n

    Procedure:<\/p>\r\n

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    1. Create a folder on your machine as a workspace. In this folder, create 2 sub-folders, development<\/i><\/u> (to be referred to as development<\/i><\/u>) and production<\/i><\/u> (to be referred to as production<\/i><\/u>). For this guide, treat these italicized, underlined words as placeholders where you should replace the actual path!<\/b><\/li>\r\n\t
    2. We will use Firefox portable for this purpose, as it does not write to the registry and thus can?t be addressed by the context menus of the system. Download the installer for Firefox Portable here: http:\/\/portableapps.com\/apps\/internet\/firefox_portable<\/a>, and install 2 instances of it, one in the development<\/i><\/u> directory and one in the production<\/i><\/u> directory. <\/li>\r\n\t
    3. Firefox utilizes Profiles to contain custom configurations, and the profiles are persistent across other instances of Firefox. Because of profile persistence, we must force what we?re building to use a custom alternative profile, which will allow it to be functionally severely restricted while a separate installation of Firefox can function normally.\r\n\t\t
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      1. Open a command prompt in Windows and execute \"production<\/i><\/u>\\App\\Firefox\\firefox.exe ?p\" replacing production<\/i><\/u> with the path to the appropriate folder<\/li>\r\n\t\t\t
      2. Select \"Create Profile\" <\/li>\r\n\t\t\t
      3. Click Next<\/li>\r\n\t\t\t
      4. Enter a profile name, preferably unique to your desired website. <\/li>\r\n\t\t\t
      5. Navigate to production<\/i><\/u> and create a directory with the profile name. (Please make note of this folder, which we?ll call \"profiledir<\/i><\/u>\" in the rest of the guide).<\/b><\/li>\r\n\t\t\t
      6. Click \"Choose Folder\" and navigate to your production<\/i><\/u> directory, and create a directory with your profile name. (Please make note of this folder, which we?ll call \"profiledir<\/i><\/u>\" in the rest of the guide).<\/b><\/li>\r\n\t\t\t
      7. Click Finish<\/li>\r\n\t\t\t
      8. Select the \"default\" profile and delete it. <\/li>\r\n\t\t\t
      9. Make sure \"Don?t ask at startup\" is checked. <\/li>\r\n\t\t\t
      10. Double-click the new profile to launch Firefox with this profile. <\/li>\r\n\t\t<\/ol>\r\n\t<\/li>\r\n\t
      11. In the production<\/i><\/u> directory, create a blank text file called \"FirefoxPortable.ini\" and put the following text in it, making sure to edit the third line based on the profile created in step 3:\r\n\t\t