Google Chrome Installation and Management on Ubuntu 26.04

Introduction

Google Chrome is optimized for modern web applications with features such as Google account synchronization, automatic updates and advanced password management. It is a fast browser. Since Google Chrome is a proprietary software, it is not included in Ubuntu's standard repositories. This guide details the installation steps on Ubuntu 26.04 using the official .deb package.

Information: The official Google Chrome .deb package is only available for 64-bit x86 systems. If you are using ARM-based devices, you should choose Chromium or ARM-compatible alternative browsers.

Installation Steps

1. Download the Package: Open the terminal and download the latest stable version using the wget command:

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

2. Perform the Installation: Install the downloaded package with the apt package manager. This process requires root authority:

   sudo apt install ./google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb

Starting and Configuring the Browser

After the installation is completed, you can start Google Chrome by searching for it from the Applications menu. Alternatively, it can be run via the terminal with the google-chrome command. Options to make the browser the default and send error reports will be presented at first launch.

Use the following command to set the browser as default via the command line:

xdg-settings set default-web-browser google-chrome.desktop

Update and Maintenance

Thanks to the Google repository added to your system during installation, Chrome updates will automatically follow Ubuntu's standard update process. is managed. To check the repository file:

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

To check for updates, you can keep your system updated with the following command:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

Troubleshooting

Dependency Errors: If you get an error during installation, it is missing run these commands to fix dependencies:

sudo apt --fix-broken install
sudo apt install ./google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb

Chrome not starting: If the browser is not responding, kill any running processes and start them again:

pkill -f chrome
google-chrome

Uninstallation Process

To completely remove Google Chrome from your system:

sudo apt remove google-chrome-stable
sudo apt autoremove

If you also want to clean the repository file, you can delete the /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list file and update the repository list.