Chrome Insider: Simplifying Chrome deployments on macOS

At Google, the Chrome Browser Enterprise team is working to help make IT admins' jobs easier, and to make Chrome as flexible as possible. Because there are a lot of enterprise admins responsible for managing Macs, we recently made some changes aimed at simplifying deployment and to help ensure that Chrome policies are properly deployed and managed on Mac machines. Here are some of recent improvements we’ve launched to help make macOS administrators’ jobs easier. 

Installer improvements

Beginning with Chrome 80, there is a macOS PKG for download along with our existing DMG option. The new PKG installer format is easier to script and enables administrators to upload the PKG file to their selected endpoint management tool, assign it to selected machines, and just deploy it! The PKG installer is built for enterprise deployment and configuration workflows and will help reduce the amount of time admins need to spend on deploying Chrome to their users. It’s available for download here.

Chrome Browser Cloud Management optimizations 

Chrome Browser Cloud Management gives administrators a unified management platform across all desktop Chrome configurations. It enables administrators to set a single group of policies and deploy it on any Mac, Windows, and Linux instance of Chrome from the same console where they manage Chrome OS. It also lets IT teams manage and deploy extensions and get a report of the extensions installed by users. Before, macOS administrators would download a PLIST file and figure out all the steps required to deploy it via their management application. 

We’ve worked closely with Jamf to help simplify policy deployment on macOS—and we’re excited to announce a new policy deployment method. Starting with version 10.19 of Jamf Pro, macOS administrators can deploy the Chrome Browser Cloud Management enrollment token with just a few clicks. Detailed instructions are available here.

That’s it! With our new PKG installer and the capability to more easily deploy our cloud management tokens via Jamf Pro, we’ve improved how IT teams can manage Chrome on their enterprise Mac deployments. We're looking forward to continuing to improve how enterprises work with Chrome in their Mac environments.