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What is Kiosk mode?
Kiosk mode locks down Firefox in order to protect the kiosk from users. This is specifically relevant to, but not only limited to scenarios where the device is publicly accessed from libraries, vending machines or public transportation.
Key characteristics of the Firefox Enterprise Kiosk mode:
- Runs in full screen mode by default
- All menus, awesome bar and toolbar are not visible as well as tabs
- The X button is not available when you hover at the top of the screen
- F11 does not work
- The right-click context menu does not work
- Hides the status bar at the the bottom when attempting to indicate progress
- Hides the destination link when hovering over links
- Available on Windows
- macOS: Kiosk mode runs on macOS although the system menu cannot be disabled (limitation from Apple)
- Linux: Kiosk mode runs on Linux if the OS doesn't use a unified menu
Launching Kiosk mode
To run Firefox in Kiosk mode, you have to use the command line. To do so, run .
Recommended configuration
Numerous features of the kiosk mode are configurable through policy or command line parameters when launching the browser. For an optimal Kiosk mode operation, we recommend that system administrators configure Firefox as follows:
- Policy configuration
- Configure accessible domains through policy as well as the homepage.
- Command line arguments
- Launch Firefox through the command line with the argument so that Firefox is launched in a private window with the cache, user history and form data between sessions cleared and pointing to a predefined URL.
Special Note
The kiosk mode provided by Firefox is a very basic mode intended for kiosks where the content loaded in the browser is strictly limited by the owner of the kiosk and either there is no keyboard or keyboard access is limited (particularly Ctrl and Alt). It is up to the kiosk owner to ensure the content does not surprise/confuse users or break browser UI in this setup.
