Unsafe Chrome Sometimes Necessary

In my work – every now and then – I found myself in need of a browser with reduced security checks (mainly to gloss over cross domain XMLHttpRequests and SSL certificate violations) for testing purposes. I didn’t want to take the risk and use my main browser session with these settings, so I made me a script (also available as a Gist). 🙂

#
# Author: Riyad Preukschas <riyad@informatik.uni-bremen.de>
# License: Mozilla Public License 2.0
#
# Loads an unsafe (i.e. with several security features disabled) instance of
# Chrome with a temporary profile (i.e. all data is lost once Chrome is closed)
chrome-unsafe() {
# for Homebrew Cask (see http://caskroom.io/) compatibility
local -a CHROME_PATHS
CHROME_PATHS=( \
"/opt/homebrew-cask/Caskroom/google-chrome-dev/latest/Google Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google Chrome" \
"/opt/homebrew-cask/Caskroom/google-chrome/latest/Google Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google Chrome" \
"/Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google Chrome" \
"chrome" \
"chromium" \
)
local CHROME="${CHROME_PATHS[1]}"
while [[ -n CHROME_PATHS ]] && ! type ${CHROME} > /dev/null; do
shift CHROME_PATHS
CHROME="${CHROME_PATHS[1]}"
done
local DATA_DIR="$(mktemp -d -t 'chrome-unsafe_data_dir.XXXXXXXXXX')"
# for a listing of command line switches see:
# https://peter.sh/experiments/chromium-command-line-switches/
"${CHROME}" \
--disable-bundled-ppapi-flash \
--disable-popup-blocking \
--disable-sync \
--disable-web-security \
--ignore-certificate-errors \
--no-default-browser-check \
--no-first-run \
--non-secure \
--user-data-dir="${DATA_DIR}" \
$@ >/dev/null 2>&1 &!
# for now the window will not be brought to the front
}

Tip:
If you use oh my ZSH you can save this file in

~/.oh-my-zsh/custom/plugins/chrome-unsafe/chrome-unsafe.plugin.zsh

and add “chrome-unsafe” to your list of used plugins in

~/.zshrc

 

Maintaining Maintenance

Sometimes well-intentioned features have unintended side effects. Case in point: WordPress’ maintenance mode. Whenever you update plugins WP will automatically enter maintenance mode, which displays a nice message to your visitors that the site will be back online shortly. It will automatically go out of maintenance once the updates are done.

Well, sometimes unexpected things happen: you are stuck in maintenance mode. WP will effectively lock you out … even the admin section will not be accessible. *ugh* This is the moment you start panicking … luckily if you wait 10 minutes or delete the .maintenance file manually you’ll be able to access your site again. *phew*

Just went though that whole cycle. m(