Chrome

Install Google Chrome and a standard set of extensions for browser-based research, teaching, and collaboration workflows.

ansible-playbook -i inventory -K playbooks/lab-stack.yml --tags chrome

The role automatically installs these extensions with Chrome’s managed ExtensionSettings policy. The normal_installed installation mode lets users disable an extension in Chrome when they do not need it.

The managed policy is written to /etc/opt/chrome/policies/managed/workstation-extensions.json. Other files in the managed-policy directory are left unchanged.

🔧 Manual setup and configuration

  • Restart Chrome after running the role so the browser reloads its managed policies.
  • For KeePassXC-Browser desktop installation and pairing, follow the concise KeePassXC integration guide.

✅ Check

  1. Open chrome://policy, reload policies, and confirm that ExtensionSettings contains the standard extension IDs.
  2. Open chrome://extensions and confirm that the extensions are installed. Users may disable any extension installed by this policy.

Validate the policy file from a terminal:

python -m json.tool /etc/opt/chrome/policies/managed/workstation-extensions.json >/dev/null

Extensions

Extension Purpose
Advanced URL Cleaner Remove tracking parameters from links
LanguageTool Check grammar and paraphrase text (see languagetool)
Freedom Block distracting websites
JSON Formatter Make JSON responses easier to inspect
KeePassXC-Browser Fill credentials from KeePassXC
Obsidian Web Clipper Save web content to Obsidian
Unpaywall Find open-access versions of research articles
Google Scholar Button Search Google Scholar from the browser
Vimium Add keyboard-driven browser navigation
Zotero Connector Save research sources to Zotero