How to Install the Official Google Chrome Browser on Ubuntu 16.04 / 18.04

Google Chrome, the most widely used internet browser today can can easily be installed on Ubuntu… The official Google Chrome is not an open source browser and you won’t see it in Ubuntu default repositories…

The open source version of Google Chrome is called Chromium, and it comes with Ubuntu default repositories.. Users can simple run apt-get command to install Chromium…

If you want to install the official Google Chrome browser, the steps below should be a good place to start..

This brief tutorial is going to show students and new users how to install Google Chrome browser on Ubuntu 16.04 / 18.04 desktops…

Step 1: Download and Install Chrome

Like Windows , Mac OS X and others, you can simple download and install Chrome from its download page… You’ll need to use Firefox or another browser to get there and download Chrome installer package…

https://www.google.com/chrome/

When you’re at Chrome’s download page, click the Download Chrome button, then select the 64-bit .deb (For Debian/Ubuntu)

Note: Installing Google Chrome will add the Google repository so your system will automatically keep Google Chrome up to date. If you don’t want Google’s repository, do “sudo touch /etc/default/google-chrome” before installing the package.

Click the Accept and Install button… When prompt, choose to save the file to your computer… This will automatically save into your Downloads folder of your home directory…

Next, browse to your ~/Downloads folder. using Ubuntu File explorer.. this is the default location if you don’t choose where to save downloaded packages…

Step 2: Install Google Chrome

In the Download folder, right-click Chrome installer and select Open With Software Install…

This should open Ubuntu Software app to install Google Chrome… When it does, click Install

After clicking Install… you will be prompted to type your password and authenticate… Confirm your password and continue…

Installing Chrome via the Command line

The same actions above can be done using the command line console… To download and install Google Chrome via Ubuntu command line, open your terminal either by using the Ctrl+Alt+T keyboard shortcut or by clicking on the terminal icon…

Then run the commands below to download Chrome 64-bit .deb file…

cd /tmp
wget https://dl.google.com/linux/direct/google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb

After downloading, run the commands below to install…

sudo dpkg -i google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb

Wait for the installation to complete… after a brief moment, depending on the speed of your computer, Google Chrome should be installed and ready to use…

When the installation is complete, go to the Activities Overview, then search for Google Chrome…

Launch Chrome… you can then sign to sync and bring over your passwords, extensions and other data…

This is how one installs Google Chrome on Ubuntu… While installing Google Chrome, if you didn’t create a file as noted above to prevent Chrome from creating a repository file, a new file was created at /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list

You open it to view its content..

cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list

This is Chrome official repository:

### THIS FILE IS AUTOMATICALLY CONFIGURED ###
# You may comment out this entry, but any other modifications may be lost.
deb [arch=amd64] http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable main

Congratulations! you have learned how to install the official Google Chrome web browser on Ubuntu 16.04 / 18.04