Brave Domain Manager

A Windows desktop app for managing Brave browser's domain blocklist policy in the Windows registry — add, remove, search, undo/redo, and back up/restore blocked domains without hand-editing regedit.

Built with Electron, React, and TypeScript. (An earlier PyQt5/PowerShell version existed prior to this rewrite; it's no longer part of this repo, but still available in the git history if needed.)

Documentation site: https://cbgithub7.github.io/Brave-Domain-Manager/

Download

Grab the latest installer from the Releases page:

• brave-domain-manager-<version>-setup.exe — Windows installer (64-bit)

Already installed? The app checks for a new version on launch and updates itself in place — see Updates below. Want the latest unreleased changes instead? See Building from source.

Install

1. Run the downloaded .exe.
2. Windows SmartScreen may warn that the app is unrecognized — the build isn't code-signed (no publisher certificate). Click More info → Run anyway to proceed. If you'd rather verify the code yourself first, build from source instead.
3. Follow the installer prompts. You can choose the install directory; a shortcut is added to the Start Menu.
4. Launch Brave Domain Manager from the Start Menu.

You do not need to run the app as Administrator. It starts normally; Windows will only prompt for elevation (UAC) at the moment you actually add or remove a domain, since that's the only operation that needs admin rights to write to the registry.

Requirements

• Windows 10 or 11 (64-bit)
• Brave browser installed (the app manages Brave's policy settings; it doesn't require Brave to be running)

Usage

Domain Management

• Add a domain — type into the input field at the top and click Add domain (or press Enter). A UAC prompt appears once; approve it to write the domain to the registry.
• Add domains from a file — click Browse… under "Add from file" and pick a .txt (one domain per line), .csv (one domain per row), or .json (array of domain strings) file. Each entry is validated and shown in a staged list before you commit — invalid or already-blocked entries are flagged with a reason and skipped automatically. Click Add N valid domain(s) to commit.
• Remove domains — click Remove on a single row, or check multiple boxes and click Delete selected.
• Search — the "Search blocked domains…" field does fuzzy matching against the current list, so minor typos or partial names still find the right entry.

Undo / Redo

Every add or remove is undoable. Use the Undo/Redo buttons in the toolbar, or the keyboard shortcuts Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y (Ctrl+Shift+Z also works for redo). Shortcuts are ignored while a text field has focus, so they won't interfere with normal text editing. Undo/redo history is per-session (it resets when you close the app) — for permanent snapshots, use Backup & Restore.

Backup & Restore

Under "Backup & restore":

• Export to file… saves the current blocklist to a JSON file you choose — a deliberate snapshot you can keep long-term, independent of Undo/Redo.
• Restore from file… loads a previously exported (or hand-written) JSON snapshot, in one of two modes:
  • Merge — adds the snapshot's domains to your current list (duplicates are skipped).
  • Replace — clears your current list first, then restores exactly what's in the snapshot.

Settings

• Theme — Light, Dark, or Follow system.
• Font scale — 70%–140%, applied live.
• Logging — disabled by default. Turn it on and pick which categories to record (registry access, user activity, audit, security, etc.). Logs are written to your user data folder and rotate daily. Current status is always visible in the Domains view's inspector panel on the right.
• About — shows the installed version number.

Updates

The app checks for a new version once, on launch, and downloads it in the background if one's found. A quiet "Update available" indicator appears at the bottom of the sidebar; once the download finishes it becomes "Update ready" — clicking it shows what changed before you choose to install (which restarts the app).

Documentation tab

Embeds the documentation site directly in the app. If it can't load (no internet connection), you'll see a retry option and a link to open it in your regular browser instead.

Building from source

Requires Node.js 20+ and npm.

git clone https://github.com/cbgithub7/Brave-Domain-Manager.git
cd Brave-Domain-Manager
npm install

Run in development (hot-reloading, unpackaged):

npm run dev

Build an installer (produces release/brave-domain-manager-<version>-setup.exe):

npm run build:win

Other useful scripts:

Command	What it does
npm run typecheck	Type-check main, preload, and renderer
npm run test	Run the unit test suite (Vitest)
npm run test:e2e	Run the end-to-end suite (Playwright) — builds first, no admin rights needed
npm run lint	Lint the codebase

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.