Many Firefox users reported that they get a strange message on the top of the options page in Firefox. The message says: “Your browser is being managed by your organization” or “Your organization has disabled the ability to change some options”.
This issue can be serious because it is related to the privacy and safety of the browser. However, you get this message because of the Firefox “ImportEnterpriseRoots” policy.
In this article, we will discuss the Firefox ImportEnterpriseRoots policy and the causes of the issue, and its possible fixes.
What is ImportEnterpriseRoots?
The Import Enterprise Roots is a Firefox policy that is used by Firefox to reads the SSL certificates from the Windows certificate store. Firefox reads the SSL certificate only when the policy is enabled otherwise it does not read the SSL certificates from the Windows certificate store.
In other words, you have security on your Firefox browser that acts as a man-in-the-middle and injects its root certificate in Firefox to intercept a secure connection without getting certificate errors in Firefox.
The antiviruses like Avast use this policy to protect the users from malware and harmful websites. Few add-ons or extensions also use this policy for the same.
It is supported on Firefox 60 or later, Firefox 60 ESR or later. The Import Enterprise Roots authority is used to import root certificates that are added to your Windows Operating System.
Firefox displays ImportEnterpriseRoots message in (about:preferences) only when a certain application or extension tries to make any changes to the Firefox using policy
There are many such policies in Firefox which when triggered can make Firefox display “Your organization has disabled the ability to change some options”. error message
What are the causes for ImportEnterprisesRoots issue in Firefox?
The causes for Import Enterprise Roots to appear is the Antiviruses like Avast, AVG, Malwarebytes, etc. installed on your computer.
As stated above these websites use this policy to inject their root certificate to intercept secure connections without getting certificate errors in Firefox. Also, antiviruses use it to protect the user from harmful websites and malware.
In addition, the privacy and ad-block related add-ons also use the policy to prevent the user from accessing untrusted websites.
How to remove ImportEnterpriseRoots in Firefox:
If you are facing difficulties while modifying certain settings in Firefox because of the ImportEnterpriseRoots, then you should just disable the policy. Here are few methods to disable ImportEnterpriseRoots in Firefox:
- Disable using Firefox
- Disable from Windows Registry Editor
- Remove the antivirus and add-ons
Let us see all the methods in detail
Disable using Firefox:
1} Open the Mozilla Firefox browser installed on your computer and type “about:config” in the address bar and hit enter.
2} As soon as you hit enter, you will get a warning that says “Changing advance configuration preferences can impact Firefox performance and security”. Click on the Accept the Risk and Continue button
3} Now, type “security.certerrors.mitm.auto_enable_enterprise_roots” in the search box below the address bar and double-click on the option that says “true” to make it “false“.
4} Next, type “security.enterprise_roots.enabled” in the search box and change the preference from true to false by double-clicking on it.
5} That’s it, Now you won’t see the ImportEnterpriseRoots in the preferences as all the third-party applications are restricted from controlling the internet traffic in Firefox.
Disable from Windows registry editor:
Another method that you can try to prevent the other software and add-ons from accessing the policy is by using the Windows registry editor. Here are the steps to do it:
1} Close the Firefox browser completely by killing all the running processes using the Task Manager.
2} Now, Go to search and type “Windows Registry Editor” and open it. Or press Windows + R and type “regedit” in the run prompt and hit enter.
3} In the registry editor type “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Mozilla\Firefox” in the address bar and hit Enter.
4} Here, in the Firefox folder you will find all the policies that are enabled on Firefox. Delete the policy that you do not want or just delete the Firefox folder to delete all the policies at once.
5} Lastly, restart your computer and after the computer boots up launch the Firefox application and check for the message on the preferences page. The message must be gone.
Remove the Antivirus and add-ons:
If the above methods did not help to prevent the applications from using the ImportEnterpriseRoots policy in Firefox to manage the Internet traffic then try removing the unwanted programs and extensions.
As we have discussed above the Antivirus software use the Firefox policy to manage internet traffic and protect the user from accessing harmful websites. So, if you have any antivirus like Avast, AVG, Malwarebytes, etc. installed on your computer then uninstall it from the control panel. To delete them go to the control panel >>uninstall a program >>tap on the application and click on uninstall.
Similarly, remove the third-party, privacy, and Ad-blocker add-ons that you have installed on your Firefox browser. To remove it type “about:addons” in the address bar and delete all the installed add-ons.
Conclusion:
In the above article, we discussed what is ImportEnterpriseRoots policy in Firefox and how to disable it to stop the browser from displaying “Your browser is being managed by your organization” or “Your organization has disabled the ability to change some options” error messages.