ChromiumBuilds

Installing extensions in Chromium

Chrome Web Store access works in most Chromium builds and is deliberately removed in ungoogled-chromium. Here is how to install extensions in either case.

Most Chromium builds can use the Chrome Web Store exactly as Chrome does. Visit the store, click Add to Chrome, and the extension installs and auto-updates normally.

ungoogled-chromium is the exception, and it is a deliberate one: store access is a Google web service, so it was removed along with the rest of them.

In ungoogled-chromium

You have two workable routes.

Use the Chromium Web Store extension. The community maintains chromium-web-store, which restores browsing, installing and updating from the store inside ungoogled-chromium. Install it once by the manual method below, and afterwards extensions behave more or less normally. This is the option most people should take.

Install a CRX by hand. First allow it, by opening this flag and setting it to Allow:

chrome://flags/#extension-mime-request-handling

Then download the extension's .crx file and open it from a file:// URL, or drag it onto chrome://extensions with Developer mode switched on.

Extensions installed this way do not update themselves. That matters: an extension with access to every page you visit is worth keeping current, which is a good reason to prefer the web store extension.

Loading an unpacked extension

For an extension you have the source of, or one you are developing:

  1. Open chrome://extensions.
  2. Turn on Developer mode, top right.
  3. Click Load unpacked and choose the folder containing the extension's manifest.json.

Unpacked extensions are removed when the browser restarts on some builds, and never auto-update.

Manifest V3

Chrome finished phasing out Manifest V2 extensions, which is what broke the traditional full-strength content blockers. Chromium follows upstream here, so a current build behaves the same way.

If ad blocking is your reason for being here, uBlock Origin Lite works under Manifest V3, and blockers that filter at the DNS or proxy level sidestep the question entirely. Older builds that still allow Manifest V2 do exist, but running an outdated browser to keep an extension is a bad trade. See updating Chromium for why.

Enterprise policy installs

On a managed machine you can force-install extensions through policy, which works on Chromium as it does on Chrome. On Windows this is under HKLM\Software\Policies\Chromium\ExtensionInstallForcelist; on macOS and Linux it is a managed preferences file. The full policy list is documented at chromeenterprise.google/policies.