Do you want to install GNOME Extensions using Google Chrome or Chromium? Well, we’re going to show you how.
GNOME extensions are a great way to extend, adjust or adapt your GNOME Shell experience to suit your needs.
It is easy to install GNOME Extensions on Linux: you just head to the official GNOME Extensions beta site in Firefox or Epiphany/Web, find an add-on you like, and hit ‘Install’. From the same website you can manage, adjust and remove GNOME extensions.
But what if you love using Google Chrome or Chromium and don’t fancy swapping browsers each and every time you want to try a new GNOME extension?
You’ll need a single Chrome extension and a “native connector” to handle the back-end integration with the desktop shell and the extensions repository at extensions.gnome.org.
This is not as straightforward as firing up Firefox or GNOME Web but, for those of you who want to be able to install, remove and manage your extensions from the browser, it is well worth the minor hassle involved in getting it set up.
Install GNOME Extensions with Chrome
First step is to install the GNOME Shell Integration add-on available on the Chrome Web Store. This add-on will also work on Google Chrome, Chromium, and some Chromium-based browsers, including Vivaldi.
Next you need to install the ‘native connector’ we mentioned earlier.
The following ‘Chrome GNOME Shell PPA’ contains the relevant packages for Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (as well as derived distributions like Mint and elementary):
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ne0sight/chrome-gnome-shell sudo apt update && sudo apt install chrome-gnome-shell
If you don’t want to add the PPA you can download and install the ‘chrome-gnome-shell’ package manually:
Whichever way you install it you should remember to restart your Chrome browser for changes to take effect.
Finally, head to the GNOME extensions website. You should now be able to install add-ons with a click and disable, remove or manage those you already have enabled.
NB: For Arch, Gentoo, Fedora and manual build instructions head over to the official project wiki page.