[Fix] Your Browser is Managed by Your Organization in Google Chrome
batch file to remove
delete_chrome_policies.bat
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@echo off |
If you are using Google Chrome web browser and suddenly Chrome started showing "Your browser is managed by your organization" message to you, this tutorial will help you in fixing the issue and getting rid of this error message.
PROBLEM SYMPTOM:
When you open the main Chrome app menu (3-dots menu), you see "Managed by your organization" message at the bottom of the menu as shown in following screenshot:
Also if you open Chrome Settings or any other Chrome:// built-in page, you see "Your browser is managed by your organization" message at the top of the page as shown in following screenshot:
If you click on the message or link given in the message, Google Chrome starts loading following link in a new tab:
https://support.google.com/chromebook/?p=is_chrome_managed
The above mentioned link then redirects to following web page:
https://support.google.com/chromebook/answer/1331549?p=is_chrome_managed
The web page mentions that your Chrome browser might be managed, or set up and maintained by a school, company, or other group. You start worrying because you are the only user using your computer and no other person is managing your computer. You think that your computer or browser is hacked.
You did everything including resetting browser to remove the message but nothing worked.
PROBLEM REASON:
First you should not worry about this message. It's a new feature introduced in Google Chrome newer versions such as Chrome 73 and later versions.
Actually Google Chrome supports policies and you can change or restrict Chrome functionality using different policies. These policies can be applied using Registry Editor in Windows operating system as mentioned here. Sometimes an extension can also apply policies in your Chrome browser without your knowledge.
You can check which policies have been applied in Chrome by visiting about:policy or chrome://policy page.
This new feature in Chrome checks for existing policies and if it finds any policy applied in Chrome, it starts showing the "Managed by your organization" message in the More menu and Settings page.
So it's not any bug or issue, it's a feature by design.
PROBLEM SOLUTION 1:
If you want to disable or remove the "Managed by your organization" message in Google Chrome, following steps will help you:
1. Open Google Chrome web browser and type chrome://flags/ in addressbar and press Enter. It'll open the advanced configuration page.
2. Now type managed in the "Search flags" box.
It'll directly go to following option:
Show managed UI for managed users
Enabled/disable showing enterprise users a 'Managed by your organization' message in the app menu and on some chrome:// pages. – Mac, Windows, Linux, Chrome OS
#show-managed-ui
3. To disable/remove the "Managed by your organization" message in Chrome, select Disabled from the drop-down box.
4. Google Chrome will ask you to restart the browser. Click on "Relaunch now" button to restart Google Chrome.
That's it. Now try to open main menu or Settings page in Chrome and you'll no longer see "Managed by your organization" message. It'll disappear completely.
PS: If you want to enable the feature again in future, select "Default" option from the drop-down box and restart the browser.
PROBLEM SOLUTION 2:
There is another solution to remove this message from Chrome.
All policies applied in Google Chrome exist under following key in Registry Editor (regedit) in Windows operating system:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Chrome
For example, following screenshot shows 2 policies applied in Google Chrome via above mentioned registry key:
You can delete the Chrome key and all policies will be removed from Chrome and it'll stop displaying "Managed by your organization" message to you.
NOTE 1: If you are using Linux operating system, all policies applied in Chrome can be found under following folder:
/etc/opt/chrome/policies
Delete the above mentioned folder to get rid of the "Managed by your organization" message in Chrome.
NOTE 2: If you are using Mac, you can remove Chrome policies using following steps:
First Go to the Finder and then go to /Library/Managed Preferences/[user]/
- com.google.Chrome.plist
- complete.plist
Remove these files and done. Thanks to our reader "Arif Janjua" for sharing it.
PROBLEM SOLUTION 3:
According to our readers "Βασίλης Χριστινάκης" and "Chuck", Avast! antivirus web shield was causing this issue.
Βασίλης Χριστινάκης said:
In my case i found that AVAST web shield is the reason. If you close Chrome and disable the web shield then the message is gone. Of course i re-enabled it but at least i know its a safe now. So check your antivirus and web shield.
Chuck said:
For me this turned out to be something that Avast was doing with their webshield. It added a policy to Chrome called quicallowed. You can find out what is causing it by going to chrome://policy.
PROBLEM SOLUTION 4:
According to our reader "Toolworker", this problem can also be caused by LastPass.
This problem can be caused by the LastPass password manager being installed, or updating itself. It can be removed temporarily by running regedit and deleting the keys:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Chrome
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\ChromeHowever, it will come back when LastPass updates again. The update places a LastPass shortcut on the desktop (at least on mine), so I know to look for Managed by Your Organization and delete the keys again.
LastPass tech support explains:
LastPass extension uses a Chrome api that is only ever supposed to be used when Chrome is being managed by an organization. Unfortunately there is no way to stop that registry key from being inserted.
