Anonymity Guard

Don't have it yet? Install Anonymity Guard from the Chrome Web Store (works in Chrome and Brave).

Hide the “started debugging this browser” bar

Anonymity Guard sets your timezone, location and language inside the browser engine through its debugging interface, so the browser shows a bar on every tab. It works with the bar showing. Just never click Cancel: that stops the protection on every tab.

To hide the bar, the browser has to start with --silent-debugger-extension-api. The flag covers the whole browser, all profiles included, so you need one launcher per browser.

Creates a launcher app in ~/Applications (the Applications folder in your home folder) with the browser's own icon, and shows it in Finder.

Brave

  1. Quit Brave completely (⌘Q).
  2. Paste into Terminal:
Terminal
APP="$HOME/Applications/Brave Guard.app"
mkdir -p ~/Applications
osacompile -o "$APP" -e 'do shell script "open -a \"Brave Browser\" --args --silent-debugger-extension-api"'
cp "/Applications/Brave Browser.app/Contents/Resources/app.icns" "$APP/Contents/Resources/applet.icns"
rm -f "$APP/Contents/Resources/Assets.car"
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Delete :CFBundleIconName" "$APP/Contents/Info.plist"
xattr -cr "$APP"
codesign --force --sign - "$APP"
open -R "$APP"
  1. Drag Brave Guard from the Finder window to the Dock and remove the old Brave icon from the Dock.
  2. Always start Brave from Brave Guard.

Chrome

  1. Quit Chrome completely (⌘Q).
  2. Paste into Terminal:
Terminal
APP="$HOME/Applications/Chrome Guard.app"
mkdir -p ~/Applications
osacompile -o "$APP" -e 'do shell script "open -a \"Google Chrome\" --args --silent-debugger-extension-api"'
cp "/Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/Resources/app.icns" "$APP/Contents/Resources/applet.icns"
rm -f "$APP/Contents/Resources/Assets.car"
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Delete :CFBundleIconName" "$APP/Contents/Info.plist"
xattr -cr "$APP"
codesign --force --sign - "$APP"
open -R "$APP"
  1. Drag Chrome Guard from the Finder window to the Dock and remove the old Chrome icon from the Dock.
  2. Always start Chrome from Chrome Guard.

Creates a desktop shortcut that starts the browser with the flag. Use it instead of the normal shortcut; you can pin it to the taskbar.

Brave

  1. Close every Brave window.
  2. Paste into PowerShell:
PowerShell
$s = (New-Object -ComObject WScript.Shell).CreateShortcut("$env:USERPROFILE\Desktop\Brave Guard.lnk")
$s.TargetPath = "C:\Program Files\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser\Application\brave.exe"
$s.Arguments = "--silent-debugger-extension-api"
$s.Save()

Chrome

  1. Close every Chrome window.
  2. Paste into PowerShell:
PowerShell
$s = (New-Object -ComObject WScript.Shell).CreateShortcut("$env:USERPROFILE\Desktop\Chrome Guard.lnk")
$s.TargetPath = "C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe"
$s.Arguments = "--silent-debugger-extension-api"
$s.Save()

Overrides the desktop entry so the app menu starts the browser with the flag.

Brave

Shell
mkdir -p ~/.local/share/applications
cp /usr/share/applications/brave-browser.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/brave-browser.desktop
sed -i 's|^Exec=\([^ ]*brave-browser[^ ]*\)|Exec=\1 --silent-debugger-extension-api|' ~/.local/share/applications/brave-browser.desktop

Chrome

Shell
mkdir -p ~/.local/share/applications
cp /usr/share/applications/google-chrome.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/google-chrome.desktop
sed -i 's|^Exec=\([^ ]*google-chrome[^ ]*\)|Exec=\1 --silent-debugger-extension-api|' ~/.local/share/applications/google-chrome.desktop
Check it worked: open brave://version or chrome://version and look for --silent-debugger-extension-api under Command Line.
If the browser is closed and another app starts it (a link in Mail or Slack), it starts without the flag and the bar comes back until you restart it from the launcher.

Then run the full test: guard.zdresearch.com/check