🦁 Brave Free Origin for macOS

A macOS shell-based policy manager for turning Brave Browser into a leaner, quieter, privacy-focused browser by disabling Brave AI, Rewards, Wallet, VPN, News, Talk, telemetry, usage ping, Web Discovery, the built-in password manager, autofill, and selected Chromium background/reporting features.

This project is an unofficial macOS companion inspired by TahaHydra/Brave-Free-Origin, which provides a Windows GUI implementation using PowerShell and Windows Registry policies.

This repository is not a forked Windows GUI port. It supports two macOS approaches:

Temporary local managed preferences via:

/Library/Managed Preferences/com.brave.Browser.plist

Persistent configuration profiles via a generated:

brave-policy.mobileconfig

You can verify applied policies in Brave:

brave://policy

✨ Why this exists

Brave is more privacy-focused than Chrome by default, but it still includes many built-in features that some users may not want:

Brave Leo / AI Chat
Brave Rewards / BAT
Brave Wallet
Brave VPN
Brave News
Brave Talk
Usage ping
P3A product analytics
Web Discovery
Built-in password manager
Autofill
Chromium reporting and background services

This script applies Brave and Chromium enterprise policies locally on macOS to reduce those features in a repeatable, auditable, and reversible way.

✅ What this script does

The default mode applies a full recommended policy set.

It disables or restricts:

Brave Leo / AI Chat
Brave Rewards
Brave Wallet
Brave VPN
Brave News
Brave Talk
Brave Tor window
Brave P3A
Brave stats / usage ping
Brave Web Discovery
Chromium metrics reporting
URL keyed anonymized data collection
Brave built-in password manager
password leak detection
address autofill
credit-card autofill
payment method queries
search suggestions
cloud spellcheck
alternate error pages
built-in translation
Safe Browsing extended reporting
Safe Browsing deep scanning
Safe Browsing surveys
Browser Labs
Live Caption
automatic image labels
new tab custom background
Chrome / Chromium GenAI features
Chrome Variations / field trials

It enables or enforces:

Brave adblock
fingerprinting protection
referrer protection
tracking query parameter filtering
De-AMP
redirect debouncing
Global Privacy Control
reduced language fingerprinting
Safe Browsing Standard protection
high efficiency / memory saver
hardware acceleration
automatic DNS-over-HTTPS mode
QUIC

🚀 Quick start

Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/Johnny-Kao/brave-free-origin-macos.git
cd brave-free-origin-macos

Make the script executable:

chmod +x brave-macos-policy.sh

Option A: temporary plist mode

Apply the default policy set:

./brave-macos-policy.sh

Or explicitly:

./brave-macos-policy.sh --default

Then open Brave and go to:

brave://policy

Click:

Reload policies

This mode is useful for testing, but on some macOS setups the manually written managed plist may not survive a reboot.

Option B: persistent mobileconfig mode

Generate a configuration profile:

./brave-macos-policy.sh --mobileconfig

Or write to a custom path:

./brave-macos-policy.sh --mobileconfig --output ./brave-policy.mobileconfig

This creates a persistent macOS profile that can survive reboot.

📦 Install the generated mobileconfig

Generate the profile:

./brave-macos-policy.sh --mobileconfig

Open the generated file:

open ./brave-policy.mobileconfig

In macOS, go to:

System Settings > General > Device Management

Select the downloaded profile and click:

Install

Reopen Brave and visit:

brave://policy

Click:

Reload policies

Reboot macOS and verify the policies are still present.

🧭 Modes

1. Default mode

Applies the full recommended policy set.

./brave-macos-policy.sh

Equivalent:

./brave-macos-policy.sh --default

This is the recommended mode if you want a clean Brave setup with Brave commercial features, telemetry, usage ping, Web Discovery, password manager, autofill, and selected Chromium reporting features disabled.

2. Interactive mode

Lets you choose which policy groups to apply.

./brave-macos-policy.sh --interactive

You can select multiple groups by entering numbers separated by spaces:

1 2 3 6

Or apply all groups:

all

Use this mode if you want to keep specific features such as translation or Brave autofill.

3. Restore mode

Removes all policy keys managed by this script.

./brave-macos-policy.sh --restore

Then open:

brave://policy

Click:

Reload policies

If policies still appear, restart Brave or run:

killall cfprefsd 2>/dev/null || true

4. Dry run

Preview actions without writing to the plist:

./brave-macos-policy.sh --interactive --dry-run

5. Mobileconfig generation

Generate a persistent profile instead of writing directly to:

/Library/Managed Preferences/com.brave.Browser.plist

Example:

./brave-macos-policy.sh --mobileconfig

Interactive example:

./brave-macos-policy.sh --interactive --mobileconfig --output ./custom.mobileconfig

Use this mode if plist mode works temporarily but disappears after reboot.

6. No restart

Apply policies without restarting Brave:

./brave-macos-policy.sh --default --no-restart

🧩 Policy groups

1. Brave feature debloat

Disables:

Brave Leo / AI Chat
Brave Rewards
Brave Wallet
Brave VPN
Brave News
Brave Talk
Brave Tor window

Policies:

BraveAIChatEnabled = false
BraveRewardsDisabled = true
BraveWalletDisabled = true
BraveVPNDisabled = true
BraveNewsDisabled = true
BraveTalkDisabled = true
TorDisabled = true

2. Telemetry and reporting shutdown

Disables:

Brave P3A product analytics
Brave stats / usage ping
Chromium metrics reporting
Brave Web Discovery
URL keyed anonymized data collection
user feedback submission
WebRTC event log collection

Policies:

BraveP3AEnabled = false
BraveStatsPingEnabled = false
MetricsReportingEnabled = false
BraveWebDiscoveryEnabled = false
UrlKeyedAnonymizedDataCollectionEnabled = false
UserFeedbackAllowed = false
WebRtcEventLogCollectionAllowed = false

3. Brave Shields and privacy protections

Enables or enforces:

Brave adblock
fingerprinting protection
referrer protection
tracking query parameter filtering
De-AMP
redirect debouncing
Global Privacy Control
reduced language fingerprinting

Policies:

DefaultBraveAdblockSetting = 2
DefaultBraveFingerprintingV2Setting = 3
DefaultBraveReferrersSetting = 2
BraveTrackingQueryParametersFilteringEnabled = true
BraveDeAmpEnabled = true
BraveDebouncingEnabled = true
BraveGlobalPrivacyControlEnabled = true
BraveReduceLanguageEnabled = true

4. Password manager, autofill, and payments shutdown

Disables Brave’s built-in:

password manager
password leak detection
address autofill
credit-card autofill
payment method queries
saved password import
autofill form data import
history import

Policies:

PasswordManagerEnabled = false
PasswordLeakDetectionEnabled = false
AutofillAddressEnabled = false
AutofillCreditCardEnabled = false
PaymentMethodQueryEnabled = false
ImportSavedPasswords = false
ImportAutofillFormData = false
ImportHistory = false

Recommended alternatives:

iCloud Passwords / iCloud Keychain
1Password
Bitwarden
Proton Pass

5. Search suggestions, spelling, error pages, and translation shutdown

Disables:

search suggestions
cloud spellcheck
alternate error pages
built-in translation

Policies:

SearchSuggestEnabled = false
SpellCheckServiceEnabled = false
AlternateErrorPagesEnabled = false
TranslateEnabled = false

If you want to keep translation, use interactive mode and skip group 5.

To remove only the translation policy later:

PLIST="/Library/Managed Preferences/com.brave.Browser.plist"

sudo /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Delete :TranslateEnabled" "$PLIST" 2>/dev/null || true
defaults delete com.brave.Browser TranslateEnabled 2>/dev/null || true

killall "Brave Browser" 2>/dev/null || true
killall cfprefsd 2>/dev/null || true
open -a "Brave Browser"

6. Safe Browsing standard mode

Keeps Safe Browsing Standard protection, but disables extra reporting, scanning, and surveys.

Policies:

SafeBrowsingProtectionLevel = 1
SafeBrowsingExtendedReportingEnabled = false
SafeBrowsingDeepScanningEnabled = false
SafeBrowsingSurveysEnabled = false

This keeps basic malicious-site protection enabled while reducing additional reporting.

7. DNS and network behavior

Policies:

DnsOverHttpsMode = automatic
NetworkPredictionOptions = 2
QuicAllowed = true

This keeps DNS-over-HTTPS in automatic mode.

It does not force Cloudflare, Quad9, Google DNS, or NextDNS.

8. Performance and UI cleanup

Enables:

high efficiency / memory saver
hardware acceleration
battery saver availability

Disables:

Browser Labs
Live Caption
automatic image labels
new tab custom background
default browser prompt

Policies:

HighEfficiencyModeEnabled = true
BatterySaverModeAvailability = 2
HardwareAccelerationModeEnabled = true
DiskCacheSize = 262144000
BrowserLabsEnabled = false
LiveCaptionEnabled = false
AccessibilityImageLabelsEnabled = false
NTPCustomBackgroundEnabled = false
DefaultBrowserSettingEnabled = false

9. Chromium / Chrome GenAI shutdown

Disables:

AI theme generation
DevTools GenAI
Help Me Write
AI history search

Policies:

CreateThemesSettings = 2
DevToolsGenAiSettings = 2
HelpMeWriteSettings = 2
HistorySearchSettings = 2

10. Chrome Variations restriction

Restricts Chrome Variations / field trials.

Policy:

ChromeVariations = 2

🛠 Manual settings worth checking

Some Brave settings are better adjusted manually because policy behavior can vary by Brave version or may affect compatibility.

WebRTC IP handling

Recommended:

brave://settings/privacy
→ WebRTC IP handling policy
→ Disable non-proxied UDP

If Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Zoom Web, or other WebRTC apps break, loosen this setting.

Google push messaging

Recommended if you do not rely on web push notifications:

brave://settings/privacy
→ Use Google services for push messaging
→ Off

Translation

Default mode disables translation.

If you want to keep translation, use interactive mode and skip group 5.

🚫 What this script intentionally does not do

This script does not:

modify /etc/hosts
block Brave domains at the DNS level
edit Brave profile files
edit Brave Local State
install or remove extensions
disable Brave updates
disable macOS system services
modify firewall rules
install launch agents or daemons

It only writes Brave / Chromium policy keys to macOS Managed Preferences.

🔍 Verify applied policies

Open Brave:

brave://policy

Click:

Reload policies

Expected result:

Status = OK
Source = Platform
Level = Mandatory

If you see Error, Ignored, or Deprecated, the policy may not be supported by your Brave version.

🏢 Why Brave shows “Managed by your organization”

When local enterprise policies are applied, Brave may display:

Managed by your organization

This is expected.

It does not mean your Mac is controlled by a company. It only means Brave is reading locally applied enterprise policies.

🔗 Relationship to Brave-Free-Origin

This project was inspired by TahaHydra/Brave-Free-Origin.

Brave-Free-Origin is a Windows GUI tool that applies Brave enterprise policies through the Windows Registry.

This repository provides a separate macOS implementation using shell scripts and macOS Managed Preferences.

It does not reuse the Windows GUI, PowerShell implementation, registry logic, hosts-file handling, scheduled-task handling, or scriptlet manager from the original project.

Credit goes to the original project for the general idea of using Brave enterprise policies to create a local, free, debloated Brave setup.

⚠️ Disclaimer

This project is unofficial.

It is not affiliated with:

Brave Software
Google
Apple
TahaHydra/Brave-Free-Origin

Use at your own risk.

Enterprise policies can change browser behavior, disable features, or create compatibility issues with some websites and workflows.

Review the script before running it.

📄 License

MIT

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
Latest commit History 3 Commits
.DS_Store		.DS_Store
LICENSE		LICENSE
README.md		README.md
Screenshot.png		Screenshot.png
brave-macos-policy.sh		brave-macos-policy.sh

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🦁 Brave Free Origin for macOS

✨ Why this exists

✅ What this script does

🚀 Quick start

Option A: temporary plist mode

Option B: persistent mobileconfig mode

📦 Install the generated mobileconfig

🧭 Modes

1. Default mode

2. Interactive mode

3. Restore mode

4. Dry run

5. Mobileconfig generation

6. No restart

🧩 Policy groups

1. Brave feature debloat

2. Telemetry and reporting shutdown

3. Brave Shields and privacy protections

4. Password manager, autofill, and payments shutdown

5. Search suggestions, spelling, error pages, and translation shutdown

6. Safe Browsing standard mode

7. DNS and network behavior

8. Performance and UI cleanup

9. Chromium / Chrome GenAI shutdown

10. Chrome Variations restriction

🛠 Manual settings worth checking

WebRTC IP handling

Google push messaging

Translation

🚫 What this script intentionally does not do

🔍 Verify applied policies

🏢 Why Brave shows “Managed by your organization”

🔗 Relationship to Brave-Free-Origin

⚠️ Disclaimer

📄 License

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