Issue 125467 in chromium: GPO to disable "Welcome to Google Chrome" on first start

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Status: Unconfirmed
Owner: ----
Labels: Type-Bug Pri-2 Area-Undefined OS-Windows

New issue 125467 by melu...@pvhs.k12.nj.us: GPO to disable "Welcome to
Google Chrome" on first start
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=125467

Chrome Version : 18.0.1025.162
OS Version: 5.1 (Windows XP)

What steps will reproduce the problem?
1. Open Google Chrome
2. First tab is "Welcome to Google Chrome"
3. Second tab is our default home page

What is the expected result?
Just to have our default home page open when Chrome starts

What happens instead?
The first tab is a welcome page for Google Chrome asking the user to sign
in. We use Google Apps with single sign in and this log in page will
confuse people in our school. Can it be disabled?

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Updates:
Cc: gwil...@chromium.org
Labels: -Type-Bug -Area-Undefined Type-Feature Area-UI Feature-Enterprise

Comment #1 on issue 125467 by asar...@chromium.org: GPO to

disable "Welcome to Google Chrome" on first start
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=125467

(No comment was entered for this change.)

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #4 on issue 125467 by joaod...@chromium.org: GPO to

disable "Welcome to Google Chrome" on first start
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=125467

A similar issue on Chrome OS has been fixed by skipping the "Welcome to
your Chromebook" tab if these policies are set (http://crosbug.com/23463).
(a) would be consistent with that behavior.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #5 on issue 125467 by mnis...@chromium.org: GPO to

disable "Welcome to Google Chrome" on first start
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=125467

I think it's reasonable to expect that the startup pages policy prevents
the login promo from showing.

Assigning to Travis who is driving the sign-in promo stuff AFAIK.
Travis, who is owning this eng-side? From my perspective, wiring this to
the startup pages policy (i.e. not show the promo if the policy is set)
makes sense. We can make the change ourselves, but this looks like a good
opportunity to disseminate how-to-integrate-with-enterprise in the team :)

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Updates:
Cc: tmc...@chromium.org

Comment #6 on issue 125467 by gwil...@chromium.org: GPO to disable "Welcome

to Google Chrome" on first start
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=125467

Adding Travis for realz

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Updates:
Cc: sa...@chromium.org

Comment #7 on issue 125467 by tmc...@chromium.org: GPO to disable "Welcome

to Google Chrome" on first start
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=125467

This makes sense. Sailesh has done the work in the past to tie the sign in
page to enterprise policies that disable sync, so I doubt he needs
additional know-how :) Last I knew he was the only peson working on flapper
for mac, so it might be awhile before he has the cycles to look at this.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #9 on issue 125467 by melu...@pvhs.k12.nj.us: GPO to

disable "Welcome to Google Chrome" on first start
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=125467

In version 19 of Google Chrome on first launch you see the "Welcome to
Google Chrome" page, only one tab opens. I don't even get our default web
site in second tab. However, on second launch it goes directly to our
default home page. So this is an improvement but probably needs a policy
setting to just be turned off.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #10 on issue 125467 by jtwad...@gmail.com: GPO to disable "Welcome

to Google Chrome" on first start
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=125467

Is there a preference that I can add to my master_preferences file to
disable the Welcome to Google Chrome tab?

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #11 on issue 125467 by gwil...@chromium.org: GPO to

disable "Welcome to Google Chrome" on first start
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=125467

Mattias: can you assign this to someone on the team to take on? It doesn't
sound like the sync folks will be able to get to this.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #14 on issue 125467 by jtwad...@gmail.com: GPO to disable "Welcome

to Google Chrome" on first start
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=125467

so excluding GPO... is there a preference I can put in the
master_preferences file to disable the Welcome to Google Chrome tab? Or
should I start another issue?

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #15 on issue 125467 by gwil...@chromium.org: GPO to

disable "Welcome to Google Chrome" on first start
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=125467

@jtwaddle: I just did some experimentation, and I *think* this may work
with master_prefs:

{
"sync_promo": {
"startup_count": 1,
"user_skipped": true,
"view_count": 1
}
}

You may want to give that a try. However, all the usual limitations of
using master_prefs still apply.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Updates:
Status: Started

Comment #20 on issue 125467 by bart...@chromium.org: GPO to

disable "Welcome to Google Chrome" on first start
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=125467

I have implemented the behavior described in comment 5. Whenever startup
URLs are set via policy, the sync promo is automatically suppressed.

CL: https://chromiumcodereview.appspot.com/10417032

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #21 on issue 125467 by melu...@pvhs.k12.nj.us: GPO to

disable "Welcome to Google Chrome" on first start
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=125467

Does that mean if I set a default home page in group policy that this will
be suppressed?

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #22 on issue 125467 by bart...@chromium.org: GPO to

disable "Welcome to Google Chrome" on first start
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=125467

This is what I implemented, yes. But the code is not in the current Chrome
version yet of course.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #23 on issue 125467 by melu...@pvhs.k12.nj.us: GPO to

disable "Welcome to Google Chrome" on first start
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=125467

Thanks everyone for the quick response. Congrats on becoming the most used
browser in the world as well.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #24 on issue 125467 by bart...@chromium.org: GPO to

disable "Welcome to Google Chrome" on first start
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=125467

My Chrome build finished and I finally got a chance to actually try this
approach. It does not work as expected. The RestoreOnStartupURLs policy is
only applied when Chrome believes there is something to restore. On *first
launch*, there is no profile yet and Chrome does not even try to restore
anything. So you still get the sync promo and none of the configured URLs.
Do we want to change it so that when RestoreOnStartup=4,
RestoreOnStartupURLs is used during first launch as well?

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #25 on issue 125467 by gwil...@chromium.org: GPO to

disable "Welcome to Google Chrome" on first start
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=125467

Hmmm, that sounds like it would change the native behavior of non-managed
Chrome as well, right? If i have RestoreOnStartup=4 in my standard ol'
prefs, such a change would make that behave differently, right?

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #26 on issue 125467 by bart...@chromium.org: GPO to

disable "Welcome to Google Chrome" on first start
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=125467

Comment 9 gives the crucial hint here: We are dealing with a regression.
This used to work in Chrome 18 but broke in Chrome 19. Leaving policies
aside for the moment, I experimented with the following master_preferences:

first_run_tabs
session.restore_on_startup
session.urls_to_restore_on_startup

For each experiment, I started Chrome with a fresh profile. Here is what I
got:


Default behavior
=================================================
Chrome 18 Chrome 19
* Sync promo * Sync promo
* Welcome page * Welcome page


-> first_run_tabs = ["URL_A"]
=================================================
Chrome 18 Chrome 19
* Sync promo * Sync promo
* URL_A * URL_A


-> session.restore_on_startup = 4
-> session.urls_to_restore_on_startup = ["URL_B"]
=================================================
Chrome 18 Chrome 19
* URL_B * Sync promo
* Welcome page

-> first_run_tabs = ["URL_A"]
-> session.restore_on_startup = 4
-> session.urls_to_restore_on_startup = ["URL_B"]
=================================================
Chrome 18 Chrome 19
* URL_B * Sync promo
* URL_A

So, when you tell Chrome 18 to restore a specific set of URLs on start-up
(which can be done via master_preferences or via the corresponding policy),
the right thing happens: You get these URLs and nothing but. Chrome 19
ignores the setting completely. Here, you have to set first_run_tabs to the
desired URLs instead and you have to use
sync_promo.show_on_first_run_allowed to turn off the sync promo. Neither of
these prefs is exposed as a policy. Rather than adding such policies, we
should fix the regression:

When URLs to restore are configured via master_preferences or policy, skip
the sync promo and welcome page, showing these URLs only. This would make
Chrome 18 and 19 behave identically in experiments 1, 2, 3 above. To fix
experiment 4, the URLs to restore should additionally take precedence over
the first_run_tabs pref as they did in Chrome 18.