Chrome homepage

[robjduk]

Hello,

I am looking to roll our Chrome to our iMacs for various reasons but my question is this...

 

Can I customise the homepage before I deploy it (via remote desktop). I just don't like the default "sign in to continue" page as I have had a couple of confused teachers before asking me what the password is!

 

All help is welcome.

 

Thank you

[Gerk]

This is a good writeup on how to hack Chrome for deployment purposes, it worked for my labs ok.

 

Configuring Other Preferences - The Chromium Projects

[CyberNerd]

https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/2657289?hl=en

 

In the Google Admin console, you can configure policies for your organization's Chrome devices according to who signs in. These cloud-managed settings also apply to users who sign in to a Chrome browser with their Google Apps account from non-corporate-managed computers (such as personal and public computers). To set device-level policies on your corporate-managed Windows, Mac, and Linux computers, see Set Chrome policies for devices.

 

For everything else there are admx files

[Gerk]

https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/2657289?hl=en

 

For everything else there are admx files

 

That won't help the OP in this case though as he's trying to have them NOT worry about logging into google's servers and those are only good for setting per-user policies based on their google logins. It all ends up leading back to the information I posted above if you want to manage per device (which is what I think he's trying to do here).

 

Oh, also forgot to mention that admx files also aren't going to help him with the iMacs. AFAIK they are windows only (they mention registry entries which aren't going to do much on OSX)

Edited September 24, 2013 by Gerk

[CyberNerd]

That won't help the OP in this case though as he's trying to have them NOT worry about logging into google's servers and those are only good for setting per-user policies based on their google logins. It all ends up leading back to the information I posted above if you want to manage per device (which is what I think he's trying to do here).

 

It works pretty well if you have 1:1 devices, but with lots of people logging on they won't get the chrome settings until google have authenticated them.

[Gerk]

Right, but he's trying to have people NOT log in to google accounts in order to get the settings. It sounds like he wants to stop Chrome from even asking people to login to their google accounts unless I'm reading it totally wrong ...

[Arthur]

The easiest way to do this is to add the sync_promo section highlighted in red below to your master_preferences file. There are lots of other settings you can add to this file, but that's the one you need to use to disable the sign in tab when a user first opens Chrome.

 

http://i.imgur.com/LiDJHpL.png

 

 

This guide may also help: Deploying and Managing Google Chrome: The Rough Guide

 

{
   "homepage": "http://www.google.co.uk",
   "homepage_is_newtabpage": false,
   "browser": {
       "check_default_browser": false,
       "clear_lso_data_enabled": true,
       "pepper_flash_settings_enabled": true,
       "show_home_button": true,
       "window_placement": {
           "maximized": true
       }
   },
   [color="#FF0000"]"sync_promo": {
       "user_skipped": true
   }[/color],
   "session": {
       "restore_on_startup": 4,
       "restore_on_startup_migrated": true,
       "urls_to_restore_on_startup": [
           "http://www.google.co.uk"
       ]
   },
   "autofill": {
       "enabled": false
   },
   "countryid_at_install": 18242,
   "distribution": {
       "create_all_shortcuts": false,
       "do_not_launch_chrome": true,
       "import_bookmarks": false,
       "import_history": false,
       "import_search_engine": false,
       "make_chrome_default": true,
       "make_chrome_default_for_user": true,
       "require_eula": false,
       "show_welcome_page": false,
       "skip_first_run_ui": true,
       "suppress_first_run_bubble": true,
       "suppress_first_run_default_browser_prompt": true
   },
   "enable_do_not_track": true,
   "instant": {
       "confirm_dialog_shown": true,
       "enabled": true,
       "enabled_once": true,
       "enabled_time": "12983895238037000"
   },
   "intl": {
       "accept_languages": "en-GB,en-US,en"
   },
   "spellcheck": {
       "dictionary": "en-GB",
       "use_spelling_service": true
   }
}

 

For everything else there are admx files

The link you posted is for managing Chromebooks and ADMX files are useless on Mac's.

Edited September 24, 2013 by Arthur

[CyberNerd]

 

The link you posted is for managing Chromebooks

 

no it's for managing chrome from a google domain

[Arthur]

no it's for managing chrome from a google domain

How can you disable the sign in page if a user has to sign into their Google account in order for the policies to apply?

 

Looking through the list there doesn't appear to be a policy that does what the OP wants anyway?

[CyberNerd]

It changes the homepage not the sign in page. Why would you stop people signing in? They'd never get their documents!!

[Arthur]

It changes the homepage not the sign in page.

But it's the initial 'Sign in and Sync' tab (pictured above) that @robjduk doesn't what to appear when a user opens Chrome for the very first time.

 

Why would you stop people signing in? They'd never get their documents!!

You wouldn't stop them. Users would still be able to sign into Chrome via the menu on the right.

[robjduk]

I just want to change the home page but glad I caused such an interesting page. I don't need to block them from google sign in as such, just not have it in their face.

 

Thanks all

[-Tim]

Do you use Workgroup Manager to manage settings on your iMacs? You can import the Google Chrome application in the details pane. Then create these new keys:

 

Action on startup - integer - 4

URLs to open on startup - array - 1 item

0 - string -

 

This allowed us to show a homepage to all users when they open Chrome instead of prompting them to log into their Google account.

[robjd]

I am just using a mountain lion server with profiles. I had a look at Gerk's fix but the google chrome folder does not seem to appear in the library. This is all basically because I am fed up with Safari throwing a fit at old versions of flash. I continue my quest Thanks

[kcalderw]

Let me know how you make out Rob, I want to do the same. I was able to stop the ksadmin permission errors but I had to run the command from terminal as the user. When I tried to do it via ARD it didn't seem to really go through.

[Gerk]

I am just using a mountain lion server with profiles. I had a look at Gerk's fix but the google chrome folder does not seem to appear in the library. This is all basically because I am fed up with Safari throwing a fit at old versions of flash. I continue my quest Thanks

 

I think that you have to create that folder first time around (and make sure to give it proper permissions).

 

Tim: I tried this through MCX and it failed miserably for me. Apparently there are multiple manifests for Chrome... and I tried it with both of them and neither worked as expected. But when I added the preference as detailed in that post and pushed it out to my lab machines it all worked as expected for me. Maybe I was just unlucky on the MCX front :/

 

Unfortunately I have to also have Safari and Firefox on all of our lab machines so I'm stuck pushing out flash updates (or disabling Xprotect which I decided was not a good plan). But on the upside Adobe does make pkg based flash updates, but I think you have to sign up for getting access to them and doing some paperwork for distribution rights, etc.

[jonnykewell1]

The only good thing about the chrome sign in page is that staff can instantly access their saved bookmarks on the go as soon as they log in