How to manually add extension to chrome? When I use drag and drop .crx file in extension page and gets the error. "This extension is not listed in the Chrome Web Store and may have been added without your knowledge"
Install Chrome extension form outside the Chrome Web Store - Stack Overflow
Any way to install extensions on Chrome for Android ?
What are some of the most surprisingly useful Chrome extensions you have?
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I want to try this extension from github(https://github.com/FaisalUmair/udemy-downloader-gui) but unable to install. Help would be much appreciated!
You now seem to need sign in to a Google account to install any extensions/add-ons from Chrome Web Store.
But you can still install an extension without logging in to a Google account by doing the following:
Find the ID for the extension you want to install. You can see it in the URL on in Chrome Web Store.
For example Adblock Plus extension has an URL like:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/adblock-plus/cfhdojbkjhnklbpkdaibdccddilifddb?hl=en-USThe ID we want is the long string of random characters like
cfhdojbkjhnklbpkdaibdccddilifddbin the URL above.Download the extension package, a
.crxfile.You can do this by using this URL with the
<ID>part replaced by the ID from above:https://clients2.google.com/service/update2/crx?response=redirect&x=id%3D<ID>%26ucFor the Adblock Plus
.crxthe URL would be:https://clients2.google.com/service/update2/crx?response=redirect&x=id%3Dcfhdojbkjhnklbpkdaibdccddilifddb%26ucYou will get a warning about that extensions cannot be added from this site, but you can ignore that, the
.crxwill be downloaded anyway.Go to your extensions page in Google Chrome. You can find it in the Tools -> Extensions menu or by using the following URL:
chrome://extensionsDrag and drop the downloaded extension
.crxfile you just downloaded in to this window to install it.
And you're done.
You could also use helpers like Chrome Extension Downloader to download the .crx file.
Here is the announcement about locking installation of Chrome extensions so that they can only be installed via the chrome store: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/d35tIyH8dVM%5B1-25-false%5D
They also say:
What if I want to run non-web store extensions? Advanced users can continue to use our Dev & Canary channels to run any extension. Please note that these channels are updated very regularly, and may contain features and bug fixes that are actively being developed.
The easiest way around is to just not use the Chrome Web Store, or just don't use Chrome.
Chrome is completely useless for me if I can't install extensions. I will not create a google account just so I can download from the chrome store. This looks much more like forcing millions of Chrome users to create google accounts than actually do anything about security.
Found a set of instructions online for loading your own custom extension:
- Navigate to
chrome://extensions- Expand the Developer dropdown menu and click “Load Unpacked Extension”
- Navigate to the local folder containing the extension’s code and click Ok
- Assuming there are no errors, the extension should load into your browser
What kind of extension is it? Is it a .CRX file? A (possibly ZIP’d) folder? A .JS user-script? The process differs for each.
- CRX:
- Drag and drop the .CRX file onto the page
chrome://extensions - Click the Install button in the prompt at the bottom of the screen
- Drag and drop the .CRX file onto the page
- Folder:
- If it is ZIP’d, extract the contents somewhere
- In Chrome, open
chrome://extensions/ - Click + Developer mode
- Click Load unpacked extension…
- Navigate to the extension’s folder and click OK
- Delete the (extracted) folder (the extension was copied)
- User Script:
- Exit Chrome (all windows)
- Copy the .JS file to the
User Scriptsfolder in yourUser Datafolder - Run Chrome
For regular Windows users who are not skilled with computers, it is practically not possible to install and use extensions from outside the Chrome Web Store.
Users of other operating systems (Linux, Mac, Chrome OS) can easily install unpacked extensions (in developer mode).
Windows users can also load an unpacked extension, but they will always see an information bubble with "Disable developer mode extensions" when they start Chrome or open a new incognito window, which is really annoying. The only way for Windows users to use unpacked extensions without such dialogs is to switch to Chrome on the developer channel, by installing https://www.google.com/chrome/browser/index.html?extra=devchannel#eula.
Extensions can be loaded in unpacked mode by following the following steps:
- Visit
chrome://extensions(via omnibox or menu -> Tools -> Extensions). - Enable Developer mode by ticking the checkbox in the upper-right corner.
- Click on the "Load unpacked extension..." button.
- Select the directory containing your unpacked extension.
If you have a crx file, then it needs to be extracted first. CRX files are zip files with a different header. Any capable zip program should be able to open it. If you don't have such a program, I recommend 7-zip.
These steps will work for almost every extension, except extensions that rely on their extension ID. If you use the previous method, you will get an extension with a random extension ID. If it is important to preserve the extension ID, then you need to know the public key of your CRX file and insert this in your manifest.json. I have previously given a detailed explanation on how to get and use this key at https://stackoverflow.com/a/21500707.
For Windows, you can also whitelist your extension through Windows policies. The full steps are details in this answer, but there are quicker steps:
- Create the registry key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Chrome\ExtensionInstallAllowlist. - For each extension you want to whitelist, add a string value whose name should be a sequence number (starting at 1) and value is the extension ID.
For instance, in order to whitelist 2 extensions with ID aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa and bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb, create a string value with name 1 and value aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, and a second value with name 2 and value bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb. This can be sum up by this registry file:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Chrome]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Chrome\ExtensionInstallAllowlist]
"1"="aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa"
"2"="bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb"
EDIT: actually, Chromium docs also indicate how to do it for other OS.
EDIT (06/05/2022): ExtensionInstallWhitelist is deprecated since Chrome 100, it has been renamed to ExtensionInstallAllowlist (answer updated)
I'm a Chrome for Android user and I'd like to install some extensions, particularly an adblock and accept-all-cookies so my browsing experience wouldn't be the shitshow that it has been lately.
Any way of doing that with Chrome Android? Or some other similar browser?
Maybe I could use Brave browser, but how do I sync my passwords and history from my Google account?
Some of my favorites that might not be that well known and are super useful. What are yours?
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