GroupPolicy broken under Linux and needlessly convoluted

Browser Support Desktop Support
,
1

Description of the issue: GroupPolicy appears to be broken or ignored in Linux
GroupPolicy flags are needlessly convoluted.

How can this issue be reproduced?

  1. create a GroupPolicy.json file in /etc/brave/policies/managed/ folder as indicated in this Brave help page:
    https://support.brave.app/hc/en-us/articles/360039248271-Group-Policy

  2. Add key value pairs

Expected Result: policies would be applied

Actual Result: none of the policies have been applied

Brave Version: Brave 1.87.191 (Official Build) (64-bit)

Additional Information:
Brave developers have made the key value pairs needlessly convoluted.
Some settings are controlled with integers; 0 = false, 1 = true,
while others are controlled via text; “Disabled” = false, “Enabled” = true.

Additionally some values need to be set to 0 | “Disabled” to disable,
while others need to be set to 1 | “Enabled” to disable.

This is needlessly convoluted. All of the key/value pairs should be enabled to disabled in the same manner. Ideally 0 to Disable and 1 to Enable.

2

@rick.jilocasin I had to stop and reread the thread because at first it came across as general feedback about not liking the Group Policy format. The bigger issue, though, is what you mentioned about policy settings being ignored or not applied.

Can you share a few specifics?

  • Which policies you tried to set
  • The exact values you used
  • What you expected to happen, and what actually happened

It would also help to know which Linux distro you are on and how Brave was installed. For example, Debian via Flatpak, Fedora via the official repo, Snap, etc.

Also, if you have not checked it yet, open brave://policy and confirm whether Brave detects the policy file at all, and whether it reports any errors.

3

@Saoiray ,

Currently running Kubuntu 24.04.
Brave was installed via the deb process from Brave’s website.
Checking brave://policy lists the policy settings including the key value pairs from my group policy file.
The policy file is located in the /etc/brave/policies/managed/ directory as indicated on the previously mentioned Brave Help Page.
It’s named GroupPolicy.json as given in the example on that same page.

These are the contents of the GroupPolicy.json file:

{
        "BraveRewardsDisabled":1,
        "BraveWalletDisabled":1,
        "BraveVPNDisabled":1,
        "BraveAIChatEnabled":0,
        "BraveNewsDisabled":1,
        "BraveTalkDisabled":"Disabled",
        "BraveSpeedreaderEnabled":0,
        "BraveWaybackMachineEnabled":0,
        "BraveP3AEnabled":"Disabled",
        "BraveStatsPingEnabled":0,
        "BraveWebDiscoveryEnabled":0,
        "BravePlaylistEnabled":0,
        "AIModeSettings":1
}

I am attempting to disable all of these features in Brave according to the settings on the Brave Help page.
None of these setting appears to be doing anything.
For example, the key value pair:
"BraveSpeedreaderEnabled":0
is supposed to disable the Speedreader functionality.
But going to the brave://settings/braveContent page still allows me to turn on the Speedreader and even activate the “Automatically use Speedreader when possible” subsetting.
I’ve included this pair "BraveAIChatEnabled":0 and yet Leo is still everpresent.

I’ve reread the help page and gone back and replaced the 0 | 1 with false | true and restarted Brave.

The updated policy file contains these settings

{
        "BraveRewardsDisabled":true,
        "BraveWalletDisabled":true,
        "BraveVPNDisabled":true,
        "BraveAIChatEnabled":false,
        "BraveNewsDisabled":true,
        "BraveTalkDisabled":true,
        "BraveSpeedreaderEnabled":false,
        "BraveWaybackMachineEnabled":false,
        "BraveP3AEnabled":false,
        "BraveStatsPingEnabled":false,
        "BraveWebDiscoveryEnabled":false,
        "BravePlaylistEnabled":false,
        "AIModeSettings":0,
        "GenAiDefaultSettings":2
}

The disabled settings were still visible… until Brave crashed.

After restarting Brave it appears that the disabled setting are no longer visible in the setting section.

Apparently I initially misread the table on the help page as applying to the json policy file.
Hopefully the disabled setting remain disabled.

Even with the updated values, there is still the confusing mix of having to set the value to true for some settings and false for others in order to uniformly disable features.

Thanks for your help in this matter.

1 Like
4

Thanks for the update, @rick.jilocasin. I’m going to tag @steeven and @Mattches so they can be aware of the request for a better process for Group Policy, but also so they can see what you’re saying did not work properly and might have some extra feedback.

5

@rick.jilocasin just to confirm, after making the changes you closed/relaunched the browser right?

6

I made the changes with the browser closed, then started and checked when I had finished.

After restart it looked like it didn’t work, then Brave crashed and after the crash it appears to have taken.

I hope that helps.

1 Like
7

@rick.jilocasin not thrilled about the crashing part but it’s good to know that the enabled/disabled policies took effect. Can you check brave://crashes and share the crash report ID with me here? Note that if you see button to submit the crash report, you’ll need to click that first before the proper ID is generated (should end in all 0’s).