Before you begin

It is possible that your organization already has policies in place to manage Google Chrome and/or Microsoft Edge browsers. If this is the case, please ensure with the responsible team that the policies are applied in the correct order and that the policies for the Silent Test extension are not overwritten by another policy.

Also, it is important that the browsers are allowed to run apps and extensions in the background, even when the users did not start them. This is one of the main ideas behind running a Silent Test.

Rolling out the Silent Test extension

Microsoft Windows

Google Chrome

Option 1, using Google Admin

Follow this link to open the “Apps & extensions“ for Google Chrome browsers on Google Admin.

Add a new extension by clicking the “+” icon. You can add the extension by ID (fcgclhgflelkmgjmdhofkkmoiccdlmbc) or you can add its URL from the Chrome Web Store. For the installation policy, we recommend using “Force Install”.

In the “Policy for extensions” section, add the following:

{"ObserverPageURL": {"Value": "https://portal.strivecast.com/silent_tests/YOUR_ACCOUNT_ID/observe"}}
JSON

You need to replace YOUR_ACCOUNT_ID with your actual account ID from our Portal. If you are not sure what your Account ID is, please contact your Technical Account Manager to get this information.

To ensure that clients who are not having the Chrome Browser actively running, you should also set Chrome to start as a Background process. Follow this link to open the “Settings” for Google Chrome. Search for the option “Background mode” and select “Enable Background mode”. This can be disabled after the silent Test.

This method also works for macOS, Linux and ChromeOS systems.

Option 2, using an Active Directory Group Policy Object
Option a), using the Administrative Templates for Google Chrome and Windows Registry settings

First, please make sure that you have the Active Directory policy templates for Google Chrome available on your Domain Controller.

Then, create a new Group Policy Object (GPO) or edit your already existing one for Google Chrome browsers.

The following needs to be added to this GPO:

In the Group Policy editor, under “Policies”, choose the following from the administrative templates:

First, we need to ensure that Google Chrome is allowed to run in the background:

Select this template and set it to enabled:

Google → Chrome → Continue running background apps when Google Chrome is closed

Then, you need to add the Silent Test extension to the list of force-installed extensions:

Google → Google Chrome → Extensions → Configure the list of force-installed apps and extensions

Enable the policy and set the following value in its options:

fcgclhgflelkmgjmdhofkkmoiccdlmbc;https://clients2.google.com/service/update2/crx

Now, the configuration for the extension needs to be created. This requires setting a new key in the Windows Registry. For this, select Windows Settings → Registry from the Preferences menu item and create a new Registry Item with the following properties:

Hive: HKEY_CURRENT_USER

Key Path:Software\Policies\Google\Chrome\3rdparty\extensions\fcgclhgflelkmgjmdhofkkmoiccdlmbc\policy

Value Name: ObserverPageURL

Value Type: REG_SZ

Value Data: https://portal.strivecast.com/silent_tests/YOUR_ACCOUNT_ID/observe

You need to replace YOUR_ACCOUNT_ID with your actual account ID from our Portal. If you are not sure what your Account ID is, please contact your Technical Account Manager to get this information.

Here you can find an example how this should look like in the end:

To verify your GPO, you can compare it with this example:

Option b), using Windows Registry settings only

If you don’t have the Active Directory policy templates for Google Chrome available, you can also set all required properties with Windows Registry keys.

To do this, go to Preferences → Windows Settings → Registry in the Active Directory Group Policy editor.

You need to create three new keys:

The first one, to allow Google Chrome to run in the background:

Hive: HKEY_CURRENT_USER

Key Path: Software\Policies\Google\Chrome

Value Name: BackgroundModeEnabled

Value Type: REG_DWORD

Value Data: 1

The second one, to force-install the extension:

Hive: HKEY_CURRENT_USER

Key Path: Software\Policies\Google\Chrome\ExtensionInstallForcelist

Value Name: 1

Value Type: REG_SZ

Value Data: fcgclhgflelkmgjmdhofkkmoiccdlmbc;https://clients2.google.com/service/update2/crx

The third one, to configure the extension:

Hive: HKEY_CURRENT_USER

Key Path:Software\Policies\Google\Chrome\3rdparty\extensions\fcgclhgflelkmgjmdhofkkmoiccdlmbc\policy

Value Name: ObserverPageURL

Value Type: REG_SZ

Value Data: https://portal.strivecast.com/silent_tests/YOUR_ACCOUNT_ID/observe

You need to replace YOUR_ACCOUNT_ID with your actual account ID from our Portal. If you are not sure what your Account ID is, please contact your Technical Account Manager to get this information.

To verify your GPO, you can compare it with this example:

Configure and run a Silent Test

To get more information on how to configure and run a silent test, please read our documentation How to run a silent test.

Contact us

For any further questions or problems, please open a ticket at the StriveCast Help Center.