How to Install Google Chrome Within Ubuntu

Adding Google's browser to Linux requires manual package installation

Google Chrome on the Linux desktop.
by Gary Newell
Gary Newell was a freelance contributor, application developer, and software tester with 20+ years in IT, working on Linux, UNIX, and Windows.
Updated November 11, 2019

Although Chromium — the open-source browser upon which Google Chrome is based — is freely available from most Linux distributions' software repositories, Chrome is not. Google's enhancements to Chromium generally make it preferable to its open-source parent for most people, but installing it requires a few extra steps.

Information in this article applies to all modern, supported versions of Ubuntu Linux and related distributions that are based on Ubuntu 12.04 and above.

System Requirements

To run Google's Chrome browser, your system must meet these minimum requirements:

  • Ubuntu 12.04 or above on a 64-bit architecture (32-bit Chrome is no longer supported)
  • Intel Pentium 4 processor or above
  • 350 megabytes of free disk space
  • 500 megabytes of RAM

Before you install Chrome, check out our list of the best and worst browsers for Linux.

Download Google Chrome

When you download Google Chrome directly from Google, the site infers your operating system based on the User-Agent string your browser sends.

This article features Linux Mint 19.1 Cinnamon, but the installation process is identical on Ubuntu and its variants.

Download window for Chrome for Linux

If the wrong browser is detected, scroll to the bottom of the download page and select the Other Platforms link from the menu in the left footer.

After you select the 64-bit .DEB option, click or tap Accept and Install to proceed.

Open the Package Using a Graphical Installer

Ubuntu (or your Ubuntu-driven distribution) may prompt you, after you select the download package, to either save the file or to open it with the default package manager. Using the GUI approach represents the easiest solution, but depending on how you've configured Ubuntu, one of several different package managers, including Ubuntu Software Center and Synaptic Package Manager, may be used.

Google Chrome installer on Linux

If you choose to use the default package manager to install Chrome, you'll see the installer window verify software dependencies. Just follow the prompts. In GDebi, for example, all you need to do is press Install Package.

Install Through the Shell

Although graphical package managers differ, one approach that's universal to all Ubuntu distributions is the dpkg utility.

To proceed, save the Chrome file then open a Terminal window by pressing the Ctrl+Alt+T hotkey. Install Chrome using dpkg by running the following command:

sudo dpkg -i google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb

As with any change to a software package, you'll need elevated privileges. Use sudo to prefix the command to temporarily grant your user account the requisite privileges to install new software.

Verify that the name of the DEB file exactly matches what you've downloaded.

Installing Chrome on Linux Mint using DPKG utility

When the installer completes, Google Chrome is added to the list of applications — by default, in the Internet folder. The first time you open Chrome, it'll prompt to make Chrome the default browser and to send usage stats and crash reports to Google.

Use Chrome

After you've installed it, Chrome keeps itself up-to-date through your package-management system. Launch it as you would any program, following the conventions of your preferred window manager.