Managed Storage for LeechBlockNG

[gelatinbomb]

The Problem

As someone that uses Leechblock a lot I have always faced the same issue over and over again. It is just to easy to bypass the extension by creating a new profile or deleting the actual one. Sure you can force the instalation of the extension through a policy but the extension is clean and does not have any blocking list. This has been a huge problem to me until I found the Managed Storage area.

The Solution

Managed Storage allows you to force the load of a configuration file stored as a policy. That means no matter how many profiles you create all of them will have Leechblock with a full configuration set up. It is avaliable on both Chrome and Firefox. It can be a little bit hard to set up as a user but at the end it gives amazing results.

Details

Managed Storage requires to store a configuration on the policies.json on chrome and a separate .json file on firefox. Usually you have a "json" property where you have to paste all the configurations of the extension in one single line. Some other extensions like ublock are more fancy and have many properties for each configuration. You can tell on the policy if you want to replace the config files on the first start up or each time the browser loads.

Now this can be hard as I mentioned before, especially for non-tech users. So I would recomend to have a button that generates the json configuration based on the actual preferences on leechblock. Then a small text saying where you have to put the text.

Some Links that might be usefull

https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Deploying-uBlock-Origin:-configuration
https://www.chromium.org/administrators/configuring-policy-for-extensions/
https://developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/mv3/manifest/storage/
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/WebExtensions/Native_manifests#managed_storage_manifests
https://mozilla.github.io/policy-templates/#3rdparty
https://extensionworkshop.com/documentation/enterprise/adding-policy-support-to-your-extension/

[proginosko]

Thanks for this. Very interesting. I will look into it.

[smayer97]

OH! This would be a MAJOR boon! I know how to stop the creation of a new profile BUT it is not possible to prevent deleting one, at least not that I have yet found.

Just FYI, and for anyone reading, I have tried to compile a list of all the extra plugs to limit bypassing Leechblock, here:
List of FAQs for how to prevent bypassing LeechBlock #328

Anything that adds to this would be great.

If a solution for this could be implemented, this would plug a big hole.

[proginosko]

Added an option to export settings to a JSON file in version 1.6.6. Someone else will need to figure out how to use it for managed storage though...