Internet access is blocked on 3rd party browsers on windows 10 devices that are applied with windows information protection (WIP) policies using intune

Since few weeks i was working on office 365 stuff including o365 applications teams ,onedrive and managing the mobile devices +windows (MDM/MAM) using intune.

while working on this ,i found that ,windows 10 devices that are applied with WIP policies ,internet is getting blocked (access denied) on 3rd party browsers like Google chrome,Firefox but it works fine on Edge, internet explorer browsers.

To know more about windows information protection ,read TechNet article https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/threat-protection/windows-information-protection/protect-enterprise-data-using-wip

To use 3^rd party browsers such as Chrome,Firefox , we need to define a Cloud Resource rule and pass through the /*AppCompat*/ variable. This is because when an unenlightened app like chrome,Firefox tries to connect to a cloud resource through an IP, Windows cant determine if it is a corporate location or a personal location, so the default behaviour for Windows is to block all connections. To resolve this you will need to simply add Cloud Resources like below, which defines the cloud resource locations you want to make as corporate.

To know more about how Unenlightened app, please read https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/threat-protection/windows-information-protection/app-behavior-with-wip

How do you allow 3rd party browsers to access internet  (this is not protecting the data on the application but just to allow internet access )?

Login to www.portal.azure.com

Go to intune app protection, click on App policy (intune app protection – app policy) ,click on the windows 10 compliance policy (you will notice windows on the platform)

On the windows 10 app protection policy ,click on Advanced settings –click on cloud resources

Add |/*AppCompat*/ in the value field and click ok. There is no sequence to add this value ,you can add it anywhere .

Once you add the value, make sure you have tick mark on the right-side to make sure the changes are valid.

Click save for advanced settings .

Now users who are using the windows 10 devices should be able to access internet using 3rd party browses.

Recommended reading

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/threat-protection/windows-information-protection/app-behavior-with-wip 

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-au/windows/threat-protection/windows-information-protection/recommended-network-definitions-for-wip

Hope it helps!