Debloat chromium browsers with policies

General
1

for those who want full debloat in your browser

found this guy , i believe a life saver for debloats

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Are there undocumented group policy options in Brave Browser?
Mention group policy management for Brave in desktop browsers section
2

I don’t think I will trust this. Very little explanation of what’s happening and why.

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3

i see… if u have any similar debloat guide feel free to share

4

Funny you should say. I was just linking Brave’s support docs for this yesterday to JG: https://support.brave.app/hc/en-us/articles/360039248271-Group-Policy
Of course this is just for Brave, but to me this is a major game changer for the browser and I can’t imagine not using them at this point.

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5

thanks for the reply

im an arkenfox guy but i like very much brave , use both , can u share what specific policies u use on brave ? suggestions are welcome

6

I request you to make a guide on how one can do this. I could not figure it out but I reckon it will help many people if you make and share an easy to follow guide on this such that even the average person can do it as you suggest.

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I outlined exactly the type of config that I use here: AI browsing in Brave now available for early testing - #5 by lone-cloud Note that this is specifically for Linux as that’s my daily driver. I also generated that config with AI, so it probably has some old, outdated config items and would need to be cleaned up; however, it works really well for me.

I don’t think this is the kind of thing I want to get into now as configuring Brave group policies is platform-specific based on the linked support doc. I’m a 99% Linux user now and I’m too lazy to jump on Windows and MacOS to write a more detailed cross-platform guide that is required here.

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8

I request you to make a guide on how one can do this.

I think there isn’t really a good substitute for reading the docs. There are lots of guides out there on how to use group policies and equivalent techniques with Chromium or Firefox which maycanbe helpful, but it’s a method of configuration that is really intended for administrators not your average end-user, so there is some learning curve, particularly because it requires making informed personal choices about what you’d like to enable or not, which typically requires a bit of research and thought.

Like Arkenfox, the system itself is actually pretty straightforward (at least on Linux) essentially just:

  1. create a file to store your preferred settings
  2. put that file in the correct location
  3. have your browser apply those settings

In my case, that meant creating a file named brave.json in the directory /etc/brave/policies/managed/

A simple example of what that file could contain that (I think) is relevant to your personal preferences would be:

{
  "BraveAIChatEnabled": false,
}

If that is all you wanted to change, it could be as simple as that.

If you wanted to disable (or enable) more things, you’d just add more lines between the { } (but be mindful of the spacing/formatting, it matters)
For example:

{
  "BraveRewardsDisabled": true,
  "BraveWalletDisabled": true,
  "BraveVPNDisabled": true,
  "TorDisabled": true,
  "BraveP3AEnabled": false,
  "BraveStatsPingEnabled": false,
  "BraveNewsDisabled": true,
  "BraveTalkDisabled": true,
}
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9

Unfortunately it’s a more involved process for MacOS users. It looks like they need to run in terminal:
”sudo mkdir -p “/Library/Managed Preferences”
sudo chown root:wheel “/Library/Managed Preferences”
sudo chmod 755 “/Library/Managed Preferences”

then set configs individually also through the command line like:

”sudo /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c “Add :BraveWalletDisabled bool true” /Library/Managed\ Preferences/com.brave.Browser.plist”

or for your example:

”sudo /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c “Add :BraveAIChatEnabled bool false” /Library/Managed\ Preferences/com.brave.Browser.plist”

^ I think this is all you need to do @JG

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10

I tried in Linux, it works fantastically just like a traditional browser without bloat just like the good old days. You need to use true/false in linux and 1/0 in windows. Not sure about mac as it uses plist format.

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11

This might be a good addition for the Community Wiki

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12

yuck, it installs a bunch of extensions, I’d remove that section at the very minimum if anyone considers using this.

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13

What? When is changing a policy makes it install a bunch of extensions, what are you talking about

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Because the policy ensures of it, if I am reading OPs post correctly (on Github).

15

I have a policy to allow installing an extension (libredirect) but it does not install anything additional so I’m very very confused.

It will not install any extension just setting a policy, ever

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If you look at the github gists from the OP link, you will see this:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\BraveSoftware\Brave\ExtensionInstallForcelist]
“1”=“cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm”
“2”=“fhcgjolkccmbidfldomjliifgaodjagh”
“3”=“nkgllhigpcljnhoakjkgaieabnkmgdkb”
“4”=“edibdbjcniadpccecjdfdjjppcpchdlm”
“5”=“mnjggcdmjocbbbhaepdhchncahnbgone”
“6”=“bbeaicapbccfllodepmimpkgecanonai”
“7”=“jaadjnlkjnhohljficgoddcjmndjfdmi”
“8”=“ldpochfccmkkmhdbclfhpagapcfdljkj”

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Oh yeah yikes it does not show until you expand the code or click the file name.

Then I 100% agree, remove it, just not noticing things on my part so it is good you brought it to the attention

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the map with the names is here:

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19

I get sponsorblock and Ublock origin but that’s a bit much otherwise I will have to agree

20

When you are already using Brave, you might as well use the Brave Shields. I don’t understand why they install uBlock Origin.

1 Like