177

I just discovered that chromium will only be released as a snap package.

How can I continue to get chromium, without snap? Is this possible without building from source?

Notes:

  • Please let's keep to the question as stated - not "what do you have against snap?"
  • I'm not asking how to remove snap - just how to use chromium as it is now, a deb.

Update

No, this is not a duplicate of that linked question. I don't need to know "why it's a snap". I want to know how to use it without snap.

Right now there is building from source, and some random PPA mentioned below. I hope someone can advise us of trustworthy alternatives.

lonix
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  • I don't use chromium but does https://askubuntu.com/a/1200343/248158 work for you? – DK Bose Jan 21 '20 at 08:57
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    @DKBose I'm very (VERY!) tempted to use that ppa, but without offense to it's maintainers... it's just some random ppa. If it had more "traction" I'd use it. Right now it has only 3 maintainers. I'm gonna keep an eye on it though... thanks! – lonix Jan 21 '20 at 09:00
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    Does this answer your question? Why apt package chromium-browser installs snap package instead? – N0rbert Jan 21 '20 at 18:32
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    @N0rbert No but thanks. That is the "why" - I wanted to know how to continue getting it without snap (hopefully as a deb). Maybe with time someone will post a decent solution here, or that PPA will get some traction (I'm wary of it right now). – lonix Jan 22 '20 at 07:18
  • This is a ppa doesn't look like random. But they only provide dev and beta version. The stable version hasn't updated for a long time. https://launchpad.net/~chromium-team/+archive/ubuntu/dev – hrzhu Jun 08 '20 at 08:56
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    I don't like snap either - I simply removed it from the Ubuntu that I am using atm. It doesn't seem to hamr anything, and I no longer have something using up my loopback devices. – j4nd3r53n Jun 15 '20 at 14:32
  • @j4nd3r53n You removed snap from ubuntu desktop? I thought that wasn't possible... some things break if you remove snap completely. How did you do it, any good links, etc.? – lonix Jun 24 '20 at 10:01
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    @lonix No, I just did - it doesn't appear to be an essential part of the system. Depending on what you feel is essential, of course. If you do apt remove ... you should see a list of all the things that are going to disappear. In my case there was one or two which I wouldn't miss any way. – j4nd3r53n Jun 24 '20 at 11:34
  • @lonix Uninstalled it too, no problems. It will only come back if you install something which depends on it. – Sqerstet Jul 09 '20 at 04:56
  • This is useful to have to install inside Docker images. – Mitar Nov 09 '20 at 22:20
  • The question is well-taken, since apps installed via snap have weird file system access limitations. FWIW, google-chrome-stable probably has the functionality that you need (although --temp-profile is missing so you have to roll-your-own with --user-data-dir). However, if you require Chromium because it's open-source, then why not build from source? One reason I can think of is that updates won't be automatic. – Brent Bradburn Feb 19 '21 at 18:39
  • apt purge snap! And pouf the nasty creature is banished. It's so neat and slick a purging it's like the devs just knew what a terrible terrible thing is snap. – Stephen Boston Mar 12 '21 at 06:23
  • Does this answer your question? How to remove snap completely without losing the Chromium browser? – Piotr Henryk Dabrowski Nov 12 '21 at 10:45
  • @PiotrHenrykDabrowski That question is unrelated. – lonix Nov 12 '21 at 10:48

15 Answers15

98

You can use Chromium from the Debian "buster" repository.
For example, if your Ubuntu release is Eoan (19.10):

  1. Remove Ubuntu chromium packages:

    sudo apt remove chromium-browser chromium-browser-l10n chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra

  2. Add Debian "buster" repository. Create a file /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list with the following content:

    deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/debian-buster.gpg] http://deb.debian.org/debian buster main
deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/debian-buster-updates.gpg] http://deb.debian.org/debian buster-updates main
deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/debian-security-buster.gpg] http://deb.debian.org/debian-security buster/updates main

  3. Add the Debian signing keys:

    sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys DCC9EFBF77E11517
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 648ACFD622F3D138
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 112695A0E562B32A

  4. Store GPG keys in /usr/share/keyrings

    sudo apt-key export 77E11517 | sudo gpg --dearmour -o /usr/share/keyrings/debian-buster.gpg
sudo apt-key export 22F3D138 | sudo gpg --dearmour -o /usr/share/keyrings/debian-buster-updates.gpg
sudo apt-key export E562B32A | sudo gpg --dearmour -o /usr/share/keyrings/debian-security-buster.gpg

  5. Configure apt pinning. Create a file /etc/apt/preferences.d/chromium.pref with the following content:

    # Note: 2 blank lines are required between entries
Package: *
Pin: release a=eoan
Pin-Priority: 500

    Package: *
Pin: origin "deb.debian.org"
Pin-Priority: 300
    

    Pattern includes 'chromium', 'chromium-browser' and similarly
    

    named dependencies:
    

    Package: chromium*
Pin: origin "deb.debian.org"
Pin-Priority: 700

  6. Install Chromium again

    sudo apt update
sudo apt install chromium

This should install the latest chromium from the debian-security repository and look like this:

$ sudo apt install chromium
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following additional packages will be installed:
  chromium-common chromium-sandbox libjpeg62-turbo libminizip1 libre2-5
Suggested packages:
  chromium-l10n chromium-shell chromium-driver
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  chromium chromium-common chromium-sandbox libjpeg62-turbo libminizip1 libre2-5
0 upgraded, 6 newly installed, 0 to remove and 9 not upgraded.
Need to get 56,6 MB of archives.
After this operation, 202 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
Get:1 http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu eoan/universe amd64 libminizip1 amd64 1.1-8build1 [20,2 kB]
Get:2 http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian buster/main amd64 libjpeg62-turbo amd64 1:1.5.2-2+b1 [134 kB]
Get:3 http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu eoan/universe amd64 libre2-5 amd64 20190801+dfsg-1 [162 kB]
Get:4 http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian-security buster/updates/main amd64 chromium-common amd64 79.0.3945.130-1~deb10u1 [257 kB]
Get:5 http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian-security buster/updates/main amd64 chromium amd64 79.0.3945.130-1~deb10u1 [55,9 MB]
Get:6 http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian-security buster/updates/main amd64 chromium-sandbox amd64 79.0.3945.130-1~deb10u1 [141 kB]

As you can see, only Chromium related packages are fetched from the Debian repository, but all others like libminizip1 still come from your Ubuntu repository.

Mohammad ALTAWEEL
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pruflyos
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  • This is excellent, and just the sort of cleverness I was looking for! I'm changing the accepted answer to this! Thanks! – lonix Jan 28 '20 at 05:21
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    I used a similar approach. Details here: https://askubuntu.com/a/1206502/164224 – ʇsәɹoɈ Jan 29 '20 at 04:10
  • @ʇsәɹoɈ Thanks. I saw that approach but wasn't sure whether to try it. From what I understand ubuntu breaks if snap itself is removed, because it ships various system things as snap. So it's not just chromium. Wasn't that your experience? – lonix Jan 29 '20 at 06:10
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    @lonix I haven't removed snapd from my system yet, but snap list tells me that the only things it currently manages are itself and gtk-common-themes. I might just leave it installed, in case Canonical ends up replacing more important deb packages with snaps. (I might also drop Ubuntu if they do that.) As long as there isn't a snap directory cluttering my home dir, I can tolerate snapd lurking in the background for now. It might even become useful to me if they fix bug 1575053 and learn from their mistake there. – ʇsәɹoɈ Jan 29 '20 at 19:12
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    "I might also drop Ubuntu"... Considering this too. It's just too much of a hassle to switch, even if it's to Debian. – lonix Jan 30 '20 at 05:58
  • I doubt that snap will be used for important system packages or security critical system updates. Anyway, right now it is save to be removed completely. You'll notice when another Ubuntu deb package requires it as a dependency in the future and asks to install it again. – pruflyos Jan 30 '20 at 20:13
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    Apart from snapd being an additional system service running in the background all the time, every snap is mounted as a separate loop device. I don't think that's scalable from a UX perspective. There are so many Linux programs that are suddenly spammed by all those loop devices snapd creates. df -h being just one example. Imagine having 30 snaps or so one day :-) Ubuntu would have to patch so many different applications to hide the snap loop devices from their output. – pruflyos Jan 30 '20 at 20:35
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    security deb gave me error, have to use: deb http://security.debian.org/ buster/updates main contrib non-free – Ferroao Jan 31 '20 at 17:35
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    I wonder why Ubuntu does not provide that debian package in its repository? – jarno Feb 07 '20 at 11:10
  • Does adding these repos have any side-effects for other packages? – Eyeslandic May 21 '20 at 08:50
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    Thanks @Ferroao. When I added "deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security buster/updates main contrib non-free" to debian.list instead of the last line above, it worked! – James Bradbury Jul 18 '20 at 16:13
  • @jamesBradbury I ended uninstalling this because debian dependencies cause dependency nightmare for other ubuntu packages. – Ferroao Jul 18 '20 at 19:16
  • @jamesBradbury I think i got problem installing libssl-dev libsasl2-dev or ubuntu versions of them. – Ferroao Jul 18 '20 at 19:43
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    After this answer Debian has changed their repository from ftp subdomain to deb. See https://wiki.debian.org/SourcesList#Example_sources.list – Zouppen Aug 04 '20 at 09:46
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    How do I update this version? – Heisenberg Jan 25 '21 at 14:25
  • snapd is reinstalled regardless using this method – lucian303 Apr 06 '21 at 05:24
  • @Zouppen, does the domain change to deb from ftp also refer to the apt pinning /etc/apt/preferences.d/chromium.pref ? – Timo Apr 24 '21 at 19:14
  • @Ferroao your solution did not work, I left the list as is, not changing the 3rd (security) entry. – Timo Apr 24 '21 at 19:21
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    @lonix I am now on Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS and have removed snapd; nothing broke. Chromium is currently at version 90.0.4430.212 and working fine. I also wrote up my approach to using the Debian package instead of the snap: https://www.inx.one/blog/debian-repo-on-ubuntu – ʇsәɹoɈ Jun 24 '21 at 08:30
  • This works on fresh 20.04, I removed both repo and key after installing as I don't frequently update browser. – Liso Nov 18 '21 at 10:08
  • Check the current Debian sources.list page for up to date repositories. The default Bullseye example works for me on Impish! – kontextify Feb 03 '22 at 09:41
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    Did someone manage to get this working on ubuntu 22.04? – lonix Sep 03 '22 at 04:45
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    Worked for me on 22.04.1 LTS using bullseye instead of buster. – ternary Oct 01 '22 at 13:04
  • Chromium: Error Code 159! What to do? – Porcupine Dec 09 '22 at 21:24
  • Error code: RESULT_CODE_INVALID_SANDBOX_STATE ... Haven't figured it out yet. Used to work. Edit: apt autoremove;apt install chromium made it crash even harder. – Dagelf Feb 27 '23 at 14:41
  • Didn't work for me either: I get ERROR:gpu_init.cc(426)] Passthrough is not supported, GL is desktop and ERROR:sandbox_linux.cc(374)] InitializeSandbox() called with multiple threads in process gpu-process when running from console. The app starts but no web access or website rendering is possible. (I only tried buster, though.) – mfg Apr 17 '23 at 15:45
  • Thank you for this. Snap breaks Slack authentication and KeePassXC integration, which makes Chromium-as-a-snap unusable for me. – Earl Ruby Apr 21 '23 at 23:38
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    You are missing one step. If chromium is installed as a snap, you have to remove the packages and the snap:

    sudo snap remove chromium

     – Earl Ruby Apr 22 '23 at 00:01
  • If you stumble upon a libwebpmux3 dependency problem, try to install exactly the required version from the Debian repository, like apt-get install libwebpmux3=0.6.1-2.1 – bartolo-otrit Jun 09 '23 at 10:34
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    Can you point us to where we can find all of these keys? I want to use bullseye instead of buster, and these keys no longer work (or I have messed something up). The errors appear during apt update itself (GPG error, signatures could not be veriifed) – TSG Oct 25 '23 at 15:23
25

If you can live with Chrome instead of Chromium, you can use the officially provided Debian package from Google:

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

You can get the download URL from the normal Chrome download page, then scroll to the very bottom of the page and select "other platforms". The URL is not directly displayed but you can see it in your download history.

apt instead of dpkg also takes care of installing all dependencies – which snap is not one of.

From reading a few files in that package, I have the impression that it installs a cron job that automatically updates the Chrome installation, just like we know it from Windows. So this looks like a pretty solid solution to me, without tinkering with package sources from other distributions or even personal PPAs. And it might even be available for longer, no need for procedure updates with a new distro version.

I've installed this in Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and it works for me, but I'm only using it headless on a web server. The package includes config files for graphical desktop environments, too, though.

ygoe
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  • There is a package google-chrome-stable in the standard repositories for Ubuntu 20.04 (I probably originally installed via "Software Boutique"), so you don't need to do anything this exotic. – Brent Bradburn Feb 19 '21 at 18:18
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    @nobar I see that I have that package installed on my system. I also noticed it was updated some time ago. So I think what I downloaded was just a copy of that package and it's more easily available through apt indeed. – ygoe Feb 22 '21 at 11:58
  • @nobar, my Lubuntu 20.04 LTs apt cannot find the chrome package. – Timo Apr 24 '21 at 19:06
  • @Timo: I did some experiments, and apparently google-chrome-stable only shows up for apt after you install via the "Software Boutique". Lubuntu has "Discover", which seems to have different packages available -- so my approach probably won't work for Lubuntu. – Brent Bradburn Apr 25 '21 at 04:40
  • The thing is that apt install <deb>.deb does not work for Lubuntu I guess, you need package only. So I should have used dpkg but what about dependencies then. I installed with the manual from the top post here. It works,if I get updates,ok, if not I come back to your solution as a basis for a gui chromium;) – Timo Apr 25 '21 at 08:22
  • Thx, worked for me on 22.04.1 LTS. – mfg Apr 17 '23 at 15:59
18

For the time being, the chromium-beta PPA also works fine & does not require snap: https://launchpad.net/~saiarcot895/+archive/ubuntu/chromium-beta

To add this PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:saiarcot895/chromium-beta
sudo apt-get update
Sec
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    This was already mentioned above. It may be an option for some people, but keep in mind it's just some random PPA - who knows whether it's safe to use? The approach in the accepted answer ensures you get chromium without malware. – lonix Jun 01 '20 at 04:26
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    @lonix their project is open source though - https://github.com/saiarcot895/chromium-ubuntu-build . Also its totally up to date , the accepted answer will install chromium 80 if that matters for someone – Sachin Jun 26 '20 at 01:52
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    Perhaps not a good idea, in general, to use a random PPA for such sprawling software as a browser. Auditability near zero even if it is open source. – Sqerstet Jul 10 '20 at 14:39
  • Agreed about the risk of using a random PPA. However, the snap-based chromium cannot access files on my separately-mounted /opt filesystem. The non-snap chromium has no such limitation. Until or unless the snap version ever is able to access all the filesystems on my device, I am willing to live with the risk of a PPA-based version. – HippoMan Oct 24 '20 at 20:51
  • looks like updates stopped for this repo :( – Ufos Feb 21 '24 at 16:19
6

For completeness: Another option is to use nix:

# Install nix
curl -L https://nixos.org/nix/install | sh
. /home/$USER/.nix-profile/etc/profile.d/nix.sh
nix-env --install chromium
chromium

Unfortunately, for getting chromium into your launcher, you'll need to execute whereis chromium and, supposed the outcome is /nix/store/bpmjh6lpsfn3fwrkqx9kp1013x4hqk2y-user-environment/bin/chromium, create ~/.local/share/applications/chromium.desktop (e.g. by gedit ~/.local/share/applications/chromium.desktop) like

[Desktop Entry]
Name=chromium
Exec=/nix/store/bpmjh6lpsfn3fwrkqx9kp1013x4hqk2y-user-environment/bin/chromium
Comment=
Terminal=false
Icon=gnome-panel-launcher
Type=Application

While this basically works, chromium sometimes hangs with this solution, I have no clue why. So if you are ok with the Debian-solution, stick to it.

David Georg Reichelt
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    It did not work for me. How do you remove all those components now? – Pynchia Nov 19 '20 at 09:56
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    Just get rid of the nix folders: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/51929461/how-to-uninstall-nix If you would further specify why installing chromium using nix did not work for you, it would maybe be possible to provide a solution, in case others also stumble over the problem. – David Georg Reichelt Nov 19 '20 at 14:46
6

Chromium is now available in Flatpak packaging format on Flathub: https://flathub.org/apps/details/org.chromium.Chromium

Although Flatpak is similar to Snap, I think it matches the freedom standards that many Linux users are usually looking for, much better than Snap.

user2366867
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    It is much faster... but the AUR and the Flatpak have a crippling sync bug. The snap is 3 versions out of date. Annoying position to be in. I'll try the beta Flatpak I guess. If Xenial was an option, I could just have a deb. – Ray Foss Feb 27 '21 at 20:14
5

In Ubuntu 22.04 you can use Rob Savoury's repository and follow the instructions from here.

First remove the snap.

sudo snap remove chromium

Then install the repo and then install chromium again.

  sudo add-apt-repository ppa:savoury1/ffmpeg4
  sudo add-apt-repository ppa:savoury1/chromium
  sudo apt-get update
  sudo apt-get install chromium-browser

Note: I don't know Rob personally and installing software from other people's repos is always a risk.

Tipi
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    This has been mentioned already many times - although it's an option for some, keep in mind it's just some random PPA - who knows whether it's safe to use? The approach in the accepted answer ensures you get chromium without malware. – lonix Oct 19 '22 at 11:13
4

There is no reason to get crazy with flatpak, adding repositories, and other weird stuff. There are official Chromium binaries.

Just download the binary directly from the source and run it.

https://download-chromium.appspot.com/

https://www.chromium.org/getting-involved/download-chromium/

Unzip in to your $HOME/bin directory or /opt or /usr/local/ whatever you want. The binary can be run from chrome-linux/chrome.

The only better option is simply to use something other than Ubuntu so you don't have snap and get automatic updates.

CR.
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    A very good option for some people, except they'd have to manage updates themselves. Most users prefer to rely on a package manager. – lonix Mar 06 '22 at 02:40
3
You can download latest official .deb build for Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal), 21.04 (Hirsute) and 21.10 (Impish) here: https://launchpad.net/~phd/+archive/ubuntu/chromium-browser/

This is a PPA repository with official Ubuntu packages released originally for Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Bionic) and updated as soon as a new version is released.-

UPDATE:

Since April 2023 Canonical does no longer provide Chromium .deb packages for any version of Ubuntu.
Hence THIS REPOSITORY WILL NO LONGER BE UPDATED.
You may want to switch to:
https://freeshell.de/phd/chromium

Piotr Henryk Dabrowski
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  • What is the difference between your PPA and the other ones floating around? Same warnings would apply as stated above to any PPA for such a core system programme. I'm not unappreciative for you efforts, just curious. – lonix Nov 12 '21 at 03:02
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    It contains only official Ubuntu packages from Ubuntu 18.04, where Chromium .deb is still supported. – Piotr Henryk Dabrowski Nov 12 '21 at 05:58
3

Another option would be fetching from Linux mint repository, as they have build their own Chromium as opposed of using snap, and you can install it right away.

enter image description here

[Downloads]$ apt-cache policy chromium
chromium:
  Installed: 96.0.4664.45~linuxmint1+uma
  Candidate: 96.0.4664.45~linuxmint1+uma
  Version table:
 *** 96.0.4664.45~linuxmint1+uma 100
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     90.0.4430.212-1~deb10u1 500
        500 http://kartolo.sby.datautama.net.id/debian-security buster/updates/main amd64 Packages
     89.0.4389.114-1~deb10u1 500
        500 http://kartolo.sby.datautama.net.id/debian buster/main amd64 Packages

Manually install

  1. Go to → http://packages.linuxmint.com/pool/upstream/c/chromium/

  2. Download package with uma in filename, it's the latest Mint releases.

  3. Wait for it to finish the download.

  4. Open up a terminal, and run following command.

    cd ~/Downloads
sudo apt install ./chromium_96.0.4664.45~linuxmint1+uma_amd64.deb

    This assume your download directory is /home/user/download.

Install from terminal

This snippet is valid as of today (28 November, 2021). If newer version has been released, you have to change the command accordingly.

wget http://packages.linuxmint.com/pool/upstream/c/chromium/chromium_96.0.4664.45%7elinuxmint1%2buma_amd64.deb
sudo apt install ./chromium_96.0.4664.45~linuxmint1+uma_amd64.deb
The only drawback of this method is that you have to install it manually if a newer chromium version has been released, you can however opt in using their ppa, so you can receive update automatically.
Liso
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2

Get rid of snap:

sudo snap remove chromium
sudo apt purge snapd

Use the official beta Chromium PPA (from the Chromium team):

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:chromium-team/beta
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt install chromium-browser
Ganton
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Melroy van den Berg
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    This PPA seems to be discontinued (last updated in 2019). – Archisman Panigrahi Jan 02 '21 at 07:52
  • That "beta" repo is maintained and can be used. (The "stable" repo is the one which is not maintained, although the "beta" one is available). – Ganton Apr 17 '22 at 08:57
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    Following these instructions leads to

    $ chromium-browser

    Command '/usr/bin/chromium-browser' requires the chromium snap to be installed. Please install it with:

    snap install chromium

     – Cie6ohpa Jun 20 '22 at 10:40
0

Chromium browser is available in deb for Ubuntu 16.04 (xenial) and 18.04 (bionic).

Ubuntu offers chromium in snap packages only for 19.x and 20.x versions.

That said, you should normally find chromium updates in Ubuntu repos for xenial and bionic.

Normally? It seems that the updated version is available several days (weeks!) before it appears in repos. Today 18 April, the chromium version in bionic repos is 89.4389.90, while versions 89.4389.114, 89.4389.128 and 90.4430.72 are available here: https://launchpad.net/~canonical-chromium-builds/+archive/ubuntu/stage/+builds?build_state=built

Click on the url of the version you want corresponding to your distribution and processor; then download chromium-browser, language pack and one of the codecs deb. Open your downloads directory in a terminal session, then sudo dpkg -i *.deb.

For Ubuntu versions 19.x and 20.x, you have two solutions:

  • download chromium-browser from debian buster repos (see former answers),
  • or download an ungoogled-chromium-browser for debian buster from here: https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium-debian. Enjoy! (answer done using amd64 build of chromium-browser 90.0.4430.72-0ubuntu0.18.04.1 from Linux Mint 19.3 Mate).
Zanna
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MikeNavy
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-1

Remove ALL snap rubbish and install Debian Chromium. Install ONLY Chromium and not any Debian Updates. After installing Chromium turn off Debian 11 'Bullseye' in Software & Update > Other Software. It is not necessary, but if a Chromium update is available, turn it on again, but do not just update it. Go to the terminal and sudo apt update && sudo apt install --only-upgrade chromium. Then turned it off againb. You are now using chromium and not chromium-browser. You cannot use the chromium-codecs*. Around a chromium-codecs run via snap. If you first delete snap, it will be restored again. Netflix will not run, but YouTube (1080p @ 30fps) will run perfectly.

enter image description here

Wobbo
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-2

Part One: Download Available Dependencies.

  1. Download these:
sudo apt install libgcc1 libmpx2 gcc-8-base

Part Two: Get .deb files of Chromium

  1. Install VirtualBox
  2. Run Ubuntu 18.04 in it
  3. Download Chromium (and dependencies) with the download-only flag IN 18.04!
sudo apt-get --download-only install chromium-browser chromium-browser-l10n chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra
  1. Go to /var/cache/apt/archives and the .deb files will be there.
  2. Copy the deb files into a shared folder between the guest and the host OS.
  3. Download and install the packages. ON 20.04!!!

Part 3: Disable Updates in Update Manager or other Update Software

  1. Running
sudo apt-mark hold chromium-browser

will disable the Updates.

You Can Also Get the .deb's from archive.ubuntu.com.

  1. Go to http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/c/chromium-browser/

  2. Use CTRL+F to search for:

    1. chromium-browser_[version]-0ubuntu0.18.04.2_amd64.deb
    2. chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra_[version]-0ubuntu0.18.04.2_amd64.deb
    3. chromium-browser-l10n_[version]-0ubuntu0.18.04.2_all.deb

  3. Download Them and Install

  4. Run sudo apt-mark hold chromium-browser to prevent it from updating to snap version.

TheAlphaReturns
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  • The above 85.0.4183 18.04.2 packages have been removed. I then tried the 85.0.4183 20.04.2 packages. Even though they installed (after displaying some software channel nonsense), Chromium was not available as an app (i.e. using Activities or the nine dots on the Ubuntu standard screen). – John Rose Nov 03 '20 at 14:46
  • I entered previous comment again as it cut me off while I was looking up details in repo index. The above 85.0.4183.83 18.04.2 packages have been removed. I then tried the 85.0.4183.83 20.04.2 packages. Even though they installed (after displaying some software channel nonsense), Chromium was not available as an app (i.e. using Activities or the nine dots on the Ubuntu standard screen). I then tried the 86.0.4640.75 18.04.1 packages and they installed OK:, though I had to do the codecs package install first due to dependency problem when I tried the browser package install first. – John Rose Nov 03 '20 at 14:54
  • Yes, chromium will get updates, you should manually look for the latest versions of chromium :) – TheAlphaReturns Dec 18 '20 at 02:47
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    Running Virtual machines?? no freaking way.. – Melroy van den Berg Dec 19 '20 at 02:28
  • @danger89 you don't need to... Can get from the Ubuntu Archive – TheAlphaReturns Apr 16 '21 at 22:37
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Without getting into the why, what you're asking for is someone, somewhere to maintain the deb of Chromium. There is a time and resource commitment to do that work, providing the build for you. There's a couple of options.

You specified a way of getting Chromium without building from source. So you're after binary packages which are not packaged as a snap. One option is to get the builds from the upstream Chromium project themselves via https://www.chromium.org/getting-involved/download-chromium

Another would be to use an older release of Ubuntu - such as Ubuntu 18.04 LTS - which still ships a binary deb of Chromium. At the time of writing 18.04 has Chromium 79 - the same as the version in 16.04, and is the latest.

popey
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    Strange how Ubuntu can simply use thousands of packages from Debian, but are unable to do so for Chromium. – lvella Dec 12 '20 at 17:24
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    I realise you're just venting snark, but for anyone reading, it's partly because we're supporting multiple (5) stable releases of Ubuntu, so we don't use the debian package of chromium, because that's only updated in stable/unstable/experimental. We support 14.04/16.04/18.04/20.04/20.10/21.04. – popey Dec 14 '20 at 15:29
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You'd use a PPA.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:system76/pop
sudo apt update
sudo apt install chromium

And that's all.

Eliah Kagan
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Infinity
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    System76's employee themselves don't recommend using Pop!_OS' PPA over Ubuntu. There is a warning as well in the PPA page. For reference, https://askubuntu.com/a/1188837/ – Lorenz Keel Aug 04 '20 at 15:09
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    Do NOT do this. I almost screwed up my laptop (Kubuntu 20.04) massively. I had to use ppa-purge to fix everything. What happened was that by adding the system76/pop repository, the next time I ran the standard package updates (Software Updates) it ended up basically installing all of PopOS along with Gnome, GDM3, and it even changed Grub! – Michael Butler Sep 26 '20 at 22:13
  • Thanks for this warning; Such a shame, since pulling it from a trusted PPA is one of the least-painful options here. I grabbed chromium from system76, then disable the pop repository and removed its key; Fingers crossed that this gets me a quick hassel-free installation of chromium. – MRule Sep 09 '22 at 12:19