How to install the Chrome web browser on Ubuntu 18.04

Using Browsers is a daily activity to access the internet, of which Google Chrome is the most widely used browser. Google Chrome is one of the best Ubuntu web browser and offers a variety of features to access the internet without any hassle!

The initial step is to check the version of your Ubuntu. Is your Ubuntu 32-bit or 64-bit?
You can easily check your system version using the command

lscpu

You will get all the details of your system along with the bit version. The Architecture column shows you the same. My system is a 64 bit instruction set architecture.

// Truncated output
Architecture:        x86_64
...

Now let’s check Ubuntu OS bit size (32 or 64 bits) with the below command

uname -i

// Gives output 
x86_64

We will see how to install Google Chrome on Ubuntu 32-bit as well as 64-bit.

A. How to Install Google Chrome on Ubuntu 32-bit

Regarding the Ubuntu 32-bit version, Google Chrome has ended support for the 32-bit version. Hence, if you have to use a 32-bit browser, you can prefer a different one which is the open source Chromium browser.

Chromium is Google’s open-source web browser project. It is a fully functional browser on its own and supplies the vast majority of the code for the Google Chrome browser.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromium_(web_browser)

Chromium browser is already available in the Ubuntu apt repository. So we can directly download and install it from the apt command.

Fire the below steps to download and install the Chromium browser in Ubuntu.

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y chromium-browser

Launch Chromium

chromium-browser

You can also install other web browsers such as Mozilla Firefox, Opera, etc.

B.How to install Google Chrome in Ubuntu 64-bit

You must be using a 64-bit version in order to use Google Chrome.

Before starting to download Google Chrome on your Ubuntu,

There are 2 ways of installation. One is by using the Graphical interface while the other makes use of terminal commands. Choose the one that is familiar as well as convenient to you.

1. Using the terminal with adding PPA

Add the Signing key

wget -q -O - https://dl-ssl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub | sudo apt-key add -

Add the PPA

sudo sh -c 'echo "deb [arch=amd64] http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google.list'

Update and Install

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install google-chrome-stable

Launch Google Chrome

google-chrome-stable

2. Using the terminal window without adding PPA

Start the terminal window by clicking on the terminal icon or by using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+alt+T.

The first step in downloading Chrome is to install it. Use the following command to install Google Chrome.

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

The next step is installing the downloaded package. This step requires the user to have sudo privileges for performing further steps. Hence, make sure that you are using the command terminal with sudo privileges.

sudo dpkg -i google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb

When asked for the password, enter your user password

Now that Google Chrome is installed, you can start using it by using the following command on the terminal window.

google-chrome
// or else
google-chrome-stable

You can also access it by clicking on the Google Chrome icon.
When using it for the first time, it will ask you to set preferences and if you would like it as your default browser. You can select that as per your choice.

3. Using the graphical interface to download chrome on Ubuntu 18.04

Visit the web page and click on the download chrome button.

https://www.google.com/chrome

Select the very first option that reads (64 bit .deb for Debian/Ubuntu). Click on the on Accept and Install option.
To open the deb file, choose the default option.

Ubuntu software will automatically open the file, once downloading is complete.

The final step is to click on install to install chrome. It will ask you to enter the user password as Linux requires root privilege for any software installation.

Once the installation is complete, you can use Google chrome by clicking on the Chrome icon.

How to Update Google Chrome in Ubuntu

During the installation process the official Google repository will be added to your system, sources.list.directory.
You can verify this part by viewing the file contents

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

The output would be

### THIS FILE IS AUTOMATICALLY CONFIGURED ###
# You may comment out this entry, but any other modifications may be lost.
deb [arch=amd64] http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable main

Hence, every time your Ubuntu system updates, it will automatically update Google Chrome along with your system!.

How To Uninstall Google Chrome on Ubuntu

To uninstall Chrome and all the packages along with it, use the following command on your terminal

sudo dpkg -r google-chrome-stable

These were the two ways to download Google Chrome web browser on Ubuntu 18.04. All that can be concluded is that it is super easy to install chrome! If you were previously using a different browser, you can import your previous settings on Chrome.

Enjoy your new browser and its awesome features!