Pretty simple question-- is it possible to create google chrome extensions via Chromium, and have that same extension be used with people running Chrome on different OS's?
I'm developing on Ubuntu.
Yes, it's perfectly possible; however, Chromium included in Ubuntu will probably seriously lag behind main Chrome versions.
You won't benefit from new APIs available to Chrome users, as well as be unable to test the extension for the majority of users.
Your best bet is, indeed, to install Chrome from Google's repositories.
Related
I need to emulate an older version of chrome. I want to avoid the solution where I have to uninstall the current version and install the desired one each time I need to test my app. I came across this article but it doesn't quite answer my question. Thank you!
It's not possible to emulate older versions of Chrome from within DevTools, as is possible in IE. It's not very reliable to emulate them anyway. I've used IE 8 emulator in the past, and on occasion it has provided different results from the version I installed on an XP VM.
In theory, it should be possible to install multiple Chrome instances side-by-side because the installation directory is OS user based. However, I don't think the installations are fully isolated from one another. At least in Windows, the application would likely write to the same registry keys. In OSX, you might be alright, provided you modify the user directory path.
An alternative solution would be trying the portable versions of Chrome that appear over the Internet, usually illegally. Everything is self contained in a directory, but it will likely perform differently from normal installations. Check out PortableApps.
I think the best solution would be to set up some VMs for the different environments and browsers you want to test with. You can manually set up these, using VirtualBox or similar. Many hosted providers will allow you to spin up fresh VMs with automated tasks to install applications and services. You have to pay for these though.
If you just need to check what server returns for old browsers (not full emulation), you can set User-Agent in Network Conditions (for now, chrome 67).
Just for completeness, here is a link (September 2021) that provides historical snapshots of the 'chromium' browser, sorted per operating system and per 'position'. I needed this when I had to test on an 8-year old version of Chrome(~ium)
https://commondatastorage.googleapis.com/chromium-browser-snapshots/index.html
The URL looks legit (googleapis.com) to me, but please check for yourself before downloading. At your own risk.
Updated on 21/03/2019
I have found the following link which contains links to previous Google Chrome Versions (32bit, 64bit and Linux).
https://www.slimjet.com/chrome/google-chrome-old-version.php
Old post
Just found out that different versions of Google Chrome can be installed.
You will have to uninstall your existing version.
Download the package from here - https://www.chromium.org/getting-involved/dev-channel
Follow the instructions and install.
Hope this helps someone. The downside is you have to uninstall your current version.
Cheers!
Today you can run Windows Sandbox to avoid installing malicious programs. (Windows Professional or Enterprise Edition is required).
more info:
Windows Sandbox Doc
While I don't have a way to emulate a different version, I did find a way to have a current and an old version installed at the same time. For the 'current' version I installed Chrome Beta. Then I set the regular version of Chrome to the older version I needed.
Google's docs didn't put all the information in one place, so here are the steps for a normal Chrome user in Windows 10:
Download the Google Update policy template (alternatively Chrome Enterprise also contains the files you'll need) and unzip it.
Copy the .admx and .adml files into %systemroot%/PolicyDefinitions (.admx files go there and .adml in the language subfolder (en-US) as found in the zip you downloaded)
Open Group Policy editor and the required settings now exist
In Computer Configuration->Administrative Templates->Google->Google Update->Applications->Google Chrome,
set Rollback to target version to enabled
set the Target version prefix override to enabled and your desired version
(e.g. 86. for version 86)
Finally open Chrome, go to Settings->About and let it check for updates. Chrome will automatically download the target version and prompt you to restart.
Do note that this deletes local user profiles and recreates them from remote including redownloading browser extensions, so use with caution. Remember to go back to the normal version of Chrome by unsetting the Group Policy settings and letting Chrome update itself when you're done.
My application requires Chrome users to have a specific extension installed
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/clickonce-for-google-chro/eeifaoomkminpbeebjdmdojbhmagnncl
Using JQuery/JavaScript, how can I determine if this extension is installed? I've seen some mentions of using chrome.management.get but I haven't found any working examples.
The reason I need the extension is ClickOnce applications won't launch in chrome unless this is installed.
I have a HTML5 app, that I need to redistribute as a desktop application. One solution could be Chrome packaged apps, but it seems you can only install those packages using the Chrome webstore.
Is there an easy way to distribute Chrome apps using a stand-alone installer, and without requiring the end-user to have Chrome installed?
You can install them using the .crx file given to you while packaging, but that still requires chrome. Actually, you pretty much have to somehow have chrome on the target, as the standalone apps use it's framework. Hope it helps.
The CefView example from the Chromium Embedded Framework project could server for this.
I am using custom sync options to synchronize only some of the artifacts from a Google chrome installation - just Bookmarks, Extensions and Open Tabs. All three are working on well on my two windows computers - but on the Linux machine, I am not getting the extensions. I have tried wiping the Linux Chrome data (by removing ~/.config/google-chrome/ and re-configuring it, the the problem remains the same.
I am wondering if there are any logs that the chrome browser produces that can give me a hint on what the problem might be.
Thanks a lot
Looks like this is not a bug but a "feature", different support of extension per OS, but seems there might be hope this is fixed in future releases see:
Chrome Web Store to get multi-platform app support for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS, and Chrome OS
Other Deployment Options
I'm doing some reading on Google Chrome stand-alone applications and I see they are distributed like Chrome Extensions, and by all means, they seem work just like Chrome Extensions, so I assume they will run on the major platforms that run Chrome, like Linux, Mac and Win. But, I don't see any official word on the supported platforms, is there such a reference point?
Chrome packaged apps are available in ChromeOS, Linux, Mac and Windows. You are right, there is no explicit information about it in our online documentation, but that's unintentional.
In fact, you can already run Chrome packaged apps in all platforms mentioned above. The way they are launched - through the Chrome New Tab - is going to change and will behave more like native apps. The current launching method is for developer preview only.