Background:
I manage an offline network of workstations.
I have written a chrome extension that needs to be in the browser for our webapp to function
I have published it through the chrome store (but not made it public)
Question:
How do I install this extension without the internet
What I've tried:
Windows GPO: Requires the update URL to be http://clients2.google.com/service/update2/crx
Windows Registry: same URL problem
Unpacked extensions: prompts users, requires developer tools, and disables the extension when chrome is restarted.
install crx: disables the extension when chrome is restarted.
Any other ideas, or ways around this?
Chrome version 48.
I was able to do this on a regular chrome installation by doing the following:
Download the extension in crx format - how to download a crx file from the chrome web store for a given id
Unzip the crx file
I had to rename the _metadata folder to metadata
Open the chrome extensions page
Enable Developer mode
Click "Load unpacked extension..."
Select the unzipped folder
This worked for me when I needed to install Advanced REST client.
I have just:
Downloaded the add-on CRX file using http://crxextractor.com/
Opened the "extensions" page on Chrome.
Drag-and-dropped the CRX file onto the "extensions" page.
I got it to work actually, sadly forgot about this post until now.
I had the Business version installed as #gerardnimo suggested.
What I wound up doing is
1) setup and IIS server to serve both the CRX and the update xml. based on this guide. https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/autoupdate
2) Then i was able to install the extension via group policy.
Here is a thread that I've found. He suggests that you can use Google Chrome for Business.
Since September 3, 2015, Installing Chrome extensions off-line no longer work (and here ) due to Google trying to prevent malicious extensions being downloaded and installed. To install an extension off-line today, require you to install a signed pre-packaged full Chrome install, using Googles Chrome for Business. This functionality is controlled by a policy list. Or according to this post, you can use their Dev or Canary channels to run any extension. Their latest builds can be found here
Related
I am trying to install extension on Google Chrome and I get this error when I drag and drop a .crx file onto Extensions page: Package is invalid: CRX_HEADER_INVALID.
How can I install it?
Change file type .crx to .zip and extract zip file to a folder.
Open the extensions page in Chrome or navigate to “chrome://extensions” from the address bar.
Check the “Developer mode” to enable the developer mode.
Click “Load unpacked” and select folder of extracted zip file;
This problem was reported on Mar 13, 2019 and closed as an intended behavior.
According to Chrome Enterprise release notes:
All extensions must be packaged with CRX3 format in Chrome 75
Starting with Chrome 75, all force-installed extensions will need to be packaged in the CRX3 format. Privately hosted extensions that were packaged using a custom script or a version of Chrome prior to Chrome 64.0.3242.0 must be repackaged. If your organization is force-installing privately hosted extensions packaged in CRX2 format and you don’t repackage them, they’ll stop updating in Chrome 75. And, new installations of the extension will fail. See ExtensionAllowInsecureUpdates.
However, it seems like in Chrome 73 Google forced this change for new installations already and introduced a policy option for updates only.
So, after unpacking extension in an old format (as described in another answer) you could pack it back with your current Chrome version and then install it as usual. This way you won't have to always keep that extension unpacked somewhere.
I try to auto-install a chrome extension on a WIN10 device that have no connection to the internet and thus can not access the Chrome Web Store. So uploading the extension to the CWS is no option. The extension exists as a crx file on a server in a network and on the device.
On Chrome Versions 59 and lower I could install the extension via settings in the registry. When Chrome was started, the user was ask if he wants to install the extension.
For this I used the registry key ExtensionInstallWhitelist and defined the path and version of the extension under the key "[...]/Google/Chrome/Extensions/[ExtensionID]".
But since Version 60 the extension does not appear in Chrome anymore. So I tried to auto-install the extension via an Active Directory domain policy.
I have imported the chrome policy templates and configured the entry ExtensionInstallForcelist (http://www.chromium.org/administrators/policy-list-3#ExtensionInstallForcelist) in the group policy editor. This policy setting is listed on the chrome://policy page in Chrome. But the extension does not appear in Chrome. The ExtensionInstallForcelist entry contains "[ExtensionID];[url where the crx file resides]". I also tested this with an url to an "Update Manifest XML document" which points to the crx file. Neither of them worked.
Does anyone know, if Chrome 60+ still supports this?
Is my configuration incorrect?
Any help will be appreciated, thanks!
We built a chrome extension to be used only inside our company by selective people. We do not want to publish this on chrome web store. We could do this before by just drag & drop the crx file in the extensions page.
But in the latest version of chrome(i use 35.x), we are not able to do this anymore. Whenever we try to install the crx file, chrome automatically disables it and shows a message
"This extension is not listed in the Chrome Web Store and may have been added without your knowledge"
with a link to https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/2811969 where it says
"You're seeing this notification because one or more of your Chrome extensions has been turned off to make Chrome safer. The extensions didn't come from the Chrome Web Store or were installed without your permission."
So, Does this mean we can never install crx file from now on? No workaround?
I know we can install using Group Policy method, but is that the only way we can do this?
Thanks in advance.
Yes, this has been disabled as a protection against malware.
The only workarounds I'm aware of are:
turn on Developer Mode and have users install as an unpacked extension after unzipping the CRX
publish unlisted or to a Google Group: https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/2663860?hl=en
I've written an extension for Google Chrome that will be released with the next version of our product. I want to understand what properties, paths for extraction, registry entries, etc. should I provide the installer of my product so that the end user doesn't have to install the extension on their own manually, and the installer does the complete job of installing the extension, and also notifies the user that the extension has been installed. As of now, the code that I have written is placed in a folder, and I use the "Load Unpackaged Extension" to load the extension. What should I do to achieve the aforementioned task?
Google's current policy on installing extensions via the registry (for Windows machines) is this:
Only extensions from the Google Extension Gallery (or Chrome Web Store - CWS) can be installed via the registry.
See this link - https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/external_extensions - for information on how this can be done. Keep in mind the following:
-This technique will still pop-up a msgbox to the user. its not completely silent.
-When using this technique, if the user subsequently removes the extension from her Chrome, the extension gets "blacklisted" on that chrome and will not re-auto-install until the user re-install it
manually. refer to Auto-installing a google chrome extension won't work ! for details.
Chrome has a couple ways of installing extensions programmatically:
http://www.chromium.org/administrators/pre-installed-extensions
Edit: yes, this policy has changed by now, as FuzzyAmi points out.
If you're using GNU/Linux, this is how you pre-install an extension from the chrome web store for all users:
/etc/chromium/policies/managed/yourextension_policy.json
‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾
{
"ExtensionInstallForcelist": [
"yourextensionuniqueidentifiersup;https://clients2.google.com/service/update2/crx",
"yourextensionuniqueidentifiersup"
]
}
Reference
metamask-chrome - AUR
I have uploaded a chrome extension on webstore but lost the local from my desktop. Is there any way to download the extension back either from webstore or developer dashboard such that I get all my files?
Just install it and then go to your User Data directory.....
http://www.chromium.org/user-experience/user-data-directory
..then into the directory of the profile you installed it under, then the extensions directory and then the directory with the key of your extension, then the directory with the latest version and youll find all your files. You can find the key listed on the extension page in chrome in developer mode. Dont forget to edit the manifest, remove the update url and such.
Or if your on windows (I know it works in XP, never tested vista/7) you can use my convenience tool ExtensionOpener.....
http://forum.valorsolo.com/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=269&p=1163