31

I use this extension called Website Blocker to discourage me from checking Gmail/Reddit. However, it is easy and tempting to open a New Incognito Window; since extensions are disabled in Incognito Mode, I'm still able to browse Gmail/Reddit while in Incognito.

Is there any way to disable Chrome's Incognito Mode in Ubuntu? Ideally, this would encourage me to use my smartphone as a dedicated Gmail/Reddit checker.

Braiam
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nucleartide
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3 Answers3

36

To disable incognito on chrome/chromium you need to edit the policies. Doing this will prevent you from opening an incognito window via Ctrl+Shift+n, and will also grey out the incognito window option in the options tab in the corner.

If you're using chrome, create the folder /etc/opt/chrome/policies/managed. Or if you're using chromium, create the folder /etc/chromium/policies/managed.

Then create a file in that directory named test_policy.json. It can have any name you want, but it needs the extension to be .json.

Open it in your favorite editor and put:

{
    "IncognitoModeAvailability": 1
}

That should do it!

Source: http://www.chromium.org/administrators/linux-quick-start and http://www.chromium.org/administrators/policy-list-3

pomsky
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Ryan
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7

This doesn't directly answer your question, but rather than disabling incognito mode, you can instead enable the extension in incognito mode windows:

  1. Click the spanner icon and then pick Tools -> Extensions from the menu.
  2. Next to the extension you're interested in, click the expander arrow.
  3. Check the "Allow in incognito" check box that is revealed.

Now the extension will be active in future incognito mode windows you open.

The caveat is that if the extension stores any information about your browsing history, your incognito browsing habits may not be as private as before. If the extension simply blocks certain URLs from loading though, this might not be a concern.

James Henstridge
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2

In Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, using Chromium, the top-voted answer didn't work. Instead, putting test_policy.json in /etc/chromium-browser/policies/managed did the trick for me.

I think this change was already in effect for 20.04 LTS, but if someone could find a source for these changes that would be great.

Miguel Almeida
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