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uberAgent
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Installing the Firefox Browser Extension

October 18, 2024
Contributed by: 
C

uberAgent’s browser web app performance functionality requires a browser extension to be installed. This article lists the necessary steps for the Firefox extension. The requirements can be found here.

Enabling the Agent Metric

To enable data collection from Firefox make sure uberAgent’s BrowserPerformanceFirefox metric is enabled in the configuration. In the default configuration, BrowserPerformanceFirefox is enabled.

Installing the Firefox Extension

Note

As of uberAgent 7.2, the version 4.0.1 of the Firefox browser add-on is required. This version is based on a V3 manifest file.

Manual Installation

For tests and PoCs, it may be easiest to install uberAgent’s Firefox extension manually.

Install the extension from the Firefox Web Store.

The extension version 2.6 or newer initially does not collect any data. To enable data collection click the uberAgent icon in the upper right corner.

Automated Installation

Add-on Deployment

Deployment of uberAgent’s Firefox extension is easily possible with Group Policy (Firefox 60+ required). Please follow the steps in Mozilla’s documentation.

Below is an example JSON code to block the user from installing any extension but force the uberAgent extension installation through Group Policy. Put it in Policies - Administrative Templates - Mozilla - Firefox - Extensions - Extension Management.

{
   "*": {
      "blocked_install_message": "If you need this browser extension, please contact the helpdesk.",
       "installation_mode": "blocked"
   },
   "{2e53b2d2-1bdf-446a-8f9d-9be4173886fe}": {
      "installation_mode": "force_installed",
      "install_url": "https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/downloads/latest/uberagent/latest.xpi"
   }
}
<!--NeedCopy-->

As of 2019-12-02, Mozilla enforces showing a consent dialog to users if an add-on collects information about visited URLs, even if the add-on was deployed through Group Policy.

This change forces us to publish a new version of the add-on that initially does not collect any data. To automatically enable data collection set the new managed storage setting EnableBrowserDataCollection to true. This can be achieved in one of two ways.

Automatically declare consent and enable data collection by running a script to set EnableBrowserDataCollection to true:

  • Make sure that cookies are enabled and Firefox’s setting dom.storage.enabled is set to true
  • Download and unzip this script

  • Run the script with elevated permissions on every endpoint: powershell.exe -executionpolicy bypass -file Set-uberAgentFFEnableBrowserDataCollection.ps1

  • Only upgrade to or install version 2.6+ of uberAgent’s Firefox add-on once the script has been run on all endpoints

If you prefer to change things manually instead of using our script we have you covered, too:

  1. Create the file uAFirefoxSettings.json in uberAgent’s installation directory with the following content: {"name": "{2e53b2d2-1bdf-446a-8f9d-9be4173886fe}", "description": "ignored", "type": "storage", "data": {"EnableBrowserDataCollection": true}}

  2. Create the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Mozilla\ManagedStorage\{2e53b2d2-1bdf-446a-8f9d-9be4173886fe}
  3. Set the key’s default value to the full path of the JSON file from step one, e.g. C:\ProgramFiles\vast limits\uberAgent\uAFirefoxSettings.json

If you do not set EnableBrowserDataCollection to true before upgrading to or installing version 2.6+ of uberAgent’s Firefox extension users have to opt-in at first run. If they do not opt-in, uberAgent cannot collect any website metrics.

Future versions of uberAgent (> 5.3) will set EnableBrowserDataCollection to true automatically unless this is specifically disabled in uberAgent’s configuration.

Note that setting ShowConsentDialog to false has the same effect as setting EnableBrowserDataCollection to true.

Installing the Firefox Browser Extension
October 18, 2024
Contributed by: 
C
October 18, 2024
Contributed by: 
C

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