How to Install Google Chrome on Linux Desktops

Google Chrome is a most popular, fast, secure, and easy-to-use free cross-platform web browser developed by Google, and was first released in 2008 for Microsoft Windows, later versions were released to Linux, macOS, iOS, and Android.

Most of Chrome’s source code is taken from Google’s open-source software project Chromium, but Chrome is licensed as proprietary freeware, which means you can download and use it for free, but you cannot decompile, reverse engineer, or use the source code to build other programs or projects.

As of February 2023, Google’s Chrome is the most used internet web browser in the world with a global market share of 65.76 percent. In other words, more than six in ten people use Google Chrome to browse the internet.

Recently, Google Chrome officially rolled out Chrome 113 version for Windows, Linux, and macOS operating systems. The actual version is 113.0.5672.92 and comes with a number of exciting fixes, features, and improvements.

In this tutorial, we will show you how to install the Google Chrome web browser in RedHat-Based Linux Distros like CentOS, Fedora, Rocky Linux, and AlmaLinux using Google’s own repository with the yum package manager tool.

If you are using Debian-based distributions such as Ubuntu or Linux Mint, follow our guide – Install Google Chrome on Debian-based Distributions

Important: Google Chrome support for all 32-bit Linux distributions are deprecated since March 2016.

Install Google Chrome on Linux

We will use Google’s Linux software packages, which are signed with GPG keys that will automatically configure the package manager repository to install and update the Chrome browser whenever a new Chrome update is released.

Step 1: Install Google YUM Repository

First, create a new file called /etc/yum.repos.d/google-chrome.repo as shown.

# vi /etc/yum.repos.d/google-chrome.repo

Next, add the following lines of code to it.

[google-chrome]
name=google-chrome
baseurl=http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/rpm/stable/$basearch
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://dl-ssl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub
Add Google Chrome Yum Repository
Add Google Chrome Yum Repository

To save a file in vi, hit the ESC key to switch to command mode, press : (colon) to open the prompt bar, and type x after the colon and hit enter to save the changes.

Step 2: Install Google Chrome on Linux

First, check whether the latest version is available from Google’s own repository using the following yum command.

# yum info google-chrome-stable
Output – Check Google Chrome Package Info
Available Packages
Name : google-chrome-stable
Version : 113.0.5672.92
Release : 1
Architecture : x86_64
Size : 92 M
Source : google-chrome-stable-113.0.5672.92-1.src.rpm
Repository : google-chrome
Summary : Google Chrome
URL : https://chrome.google.com/
License : Multiple, see https://chrome.google.com/
Description : The web browser from Google

Do you see the highlighted output above, which clearly told that the latest version of Chrome is available from the repository. So, let’s install it using the yum command as shown below, which will automatically install all the needed dependencies.

# yum install google-chrome-stable
Update: Sadly, the Google Chrome browser no longer supports the most famous commercial distribution RHEL 6.x, and its free clones such as CentOS and Scientific Linux.

Yes, they’ve discontinued support for the RHEL 6.X version of Google Chrome, and on the other side, the latest Firefox and Opera browsers run successfully on the same platforms.

The next step for RHEL/CentOS 6 users is to move to recent releases of RHEL/CentOS or Rocky Linux/AlmaLinux, the latest Google Chrome works out of the box on these releases.

Step 3: Running Google Chrome on Linux

Start the Chrome browser with a non-root user from the command line or start it from System Menu.

# google-chrome &

Welcome screen of Chrome web browser.

Welcome Google Chrome
Welcome Google Chrome

Browsing www.tecmint.com on Chrome web browser.

Running Chrome Browser in Linux
Running Chrome Browser on Linux

That’s it, enjoy browsing with Chrome, and do let me know your browsing experience with Chrome via comments.

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