2 Ways to Install Google Chrome on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Bionic Beaver

This tutorial is for Linux beginners, showing 2 ways to install Google Chrome on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Bionic Beaver. The first method uses the graphical user interface; the second uses terminal command line. Please note that Google Chrome no longer provide 32 bit support for Linux. If you upgraded to Ubuntu 18.04 from a 32 bit Ubuntu system, consider switching to 64 bit Ubuntu 18.04, or installing Chromium browser instead.

Install Google Chrome on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS the Graphical Way

Go to https://www.google.com/chrome. Click the Download Chrome button.

google chrome ubuntu 18.04

Then select the first option (64 bit .deb for Debian/Ubuntu), click Accept and Install.

install-google-chrome-on-ubuntu-18.04

When Firefox asks you how to open this deb file, choose the default option to open it in Ubuntu Software (formerly Ubuntu Software Center).

google chrome ubuntu 18.04 download

If you choose the first option, Google Chrome deb package will be downloaded to /tmp/mozilla_$username directory. Once the download is complete, Ubuntu Software will automatically open. Click the Install button to install google-chrome-stable to Ubuntu 18.04.

google chrome browser for ubuntu 18.04 download

Because software installation on Linux requires root privilege, so you have to enter your password to authenticate.

google chrome for ubuntu 18.04 64 bit

Once the installation is complete, you can start Chrome browser from applications menu

how to install google chrome browser in ubuntu 18.04

You can also start it by typing the following command in the terminal.

google-chrome-stable

how to install google chrome in ubuntu using command line

Install Google Chrome on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS from the Command Line

For those of you who like to practice their command line skills, here is how to install Google Chrome on Ubuntu 18.04 using terminal. Open a terminal window from applications menu.

google chrome command line linux

Then enter the following command in terminal to create a source list file for Google Chrome browser. Nano is a command line text editor, which allows you to edit text files in the terminal.

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list

how to install google chrome in ubuntu 18.04 using terminal

Next, copy the following APT line and paste it into google-chrome.list file.

deb [arch=amd64] http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable main

install google chrome browser ubuntu 18.04 from command line

To save the file in Nano text editor, press Ctrl+O, then press Enter to confirm. Next, press CTRL+X to exit out of this file. After that, run the following command to download Google’s signing key.

wget https://dl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub

install google chrome ubuntu command line

Then use apt-key to add it to your keyring so the package manager can verify the integrity of Google Chrome deb package.

sudo apt-key add linux_signing_key.pub

Now update package list and install the stable version of Google Chrome.

sudo apt update

sudo apt install google-chrome-stable

If you want to install the beta or unstable version of Google Chrome, use the following commands:

sudo apt install google-chrome-beta

sudo apt install google-chrome-unstable

To start Chrome browser from the command line, run:

google-chrome-stable

Flash plugin is disabled by default and will be eventually removed from Google Chrome browser by 2020.

I hope this tutorial helped you install Google Chrome browser on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, either from the graphical user interface or using command line. As always, if you found this post useful, then subscribe to our free newsletter to get new tutorials. Take care.

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39 Responses to “2 Ways to Install Google Chrome on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Bionic Beaver

  • Michael Mitchell
    6 years ago

    I tried the simple way to no avail, then the way indicated using the command line. I get a notice about ttf fonts, which seems to want an ÖK of some sort, then it appears that the fonts are being installed,but they all stop at 9%. Any ideas?

  • Mysterion
    6 years ago

    Worked like a charm!

  • Eric Cartman
    6 years ago

    Thanks for putting up a good tutorial for newbies like me.

  • William Fernandes
    6 years ago

    short & good tutorial…terminal base commands worked nicely.

  • fazaayi
    6 years ago

    when i use this command :
    wget https://dl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub
    thi will apear :
    https://dl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub
    Resolving dl.google.com (dl.google.com)… 172.217.18.14, 2a00:1450:4001:80b::200e
    Connecting to dl.google.com (dl.google.com)|172.217.18.14|:443… connected.
    HTTP request sent, awaiting response… 404 Not Found

    • Xiao Guo-An (Admin)
      6 years ago

      Is there a middle box intercepting traffic?

      install google chrome ubuntu command line

  • TheLoserAndFailure
    6 years ago

    Is there a way to install google chrome on a 32-bit ubuntu 18.04? or else ill install chromium, which worked on my other 32-bit machine (with ubuntu 12.04)

    • Xiao Guo-An (Admin)
      6 years ago

      Not that I’m aware of

    • Final Google Chrome for 32-bit x86 Linux was google-chrome-stable_48.0.2564.116-1_i386.deb . If you find that with Google and download it, you should be able to install it with “dpkg -i” or “gdebi-gtk”. Don’t bother setting up the Google PPA, it’s not just that there’s no updates any longer; it doesn’t have an i386 listing at all any more so it causes “some package update lists have failed to download” sorts of error messages if you do install it on 32-bit x86.

      That said probably chromium is the better way to go anyway.

  • TheLoserAndFailure
    6 years ago

    Aware of what?

    • Xiao Guo-An (Admin)
      6 years ago

      You asked if there’s a way. I replied “Not that I’m aware of”. It means “I believe there isn’t”.

  • TheLoserAndFailure
    6 years ago

    Oh okay. I’ll get Chromium instead then…

  • Kelly Carpenter
    6 years ago

    I received
    Bus error (core dumped)
    Anyway around that?

  • Worked like a charm. Tried doing it the easy way but it was taking forever to download. Got tired of waiting went went the terminal route. Remarkably faster. Thanks!

  • Thank you for a great tip, Xiao.

    To summarize the terminal way of doing this (which is almost always better:
    Paste the bellow text into a file, e.g “install-chrome.sh”, then run with “sudo bash install-chrome.sh” :

    #!/bin/bash
    
    if [ ! $(id -u) = 0 ]; then
       echo "you are not root"
       echo "run this script with 'sudo'"
       exit
    fi
    
    echo "deb [arch=amd64] http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable main" >  /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list
    
    wget https://dl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub
    
    apt-key add linux_signing_key.pub
    
    apt update
    
    apt install google-chrome-stable
  • Anonymous while dog barks in the background
    5 years ago

    Your contribution has impacted me

  • Kingsley Felix
    5 years ago

    So how do you access it after?

  • Hello,
    I am using Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS

    I followed the instructions, but when I run the command

    wget https://dl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub

    I get this output

    HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
    Length: 8038 (7.8K) [application/octet-stream]
    linux_signing_key.pub: Permission denied
    
    Cannot write to ‘linux_signing_key.pub’ (Success).

    Then I ran this command

    sudo apt-key add linux_signing_key.pub

    and got the following output

    gpg: can't open 'linux_signing_key.pub': No such file or directory

    What am I missing here ?

    Later I ran sudo apt update, and got this output

    avi@avi:/$ sudo apt update
    Hit:1 http://il.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic InRelease
    Hit:2 http://il.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates InRelease
    Hit:3 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-security InRelease
    Hit:4 http://il.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-backports InRelease            
    Ign:5 http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb stable InRelease                    
    Get:6 http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb stable Release [943 B]
    Get:7 http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb stable Release.gpg [819 B]
    Ign:7 http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb stable Release.gpg
    Reading package lists... Done
    W: GPG error: http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb stable Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 6494C6D6997C215E
    E: The repository 'http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb stable Release' is not signed.
    N: Updating from such a repository can't be done securely, and is therefore disabled by default.
    N: See apt-secure(8) manpage for repository creation and user configuration details.

    Please help me
    thanks

    • Xiao Guo An (Admin)
      5 years ago

      You were in a directory where your normal user account doesn’t have write permission, so the signing key failed to download. You can go back to the home directory.

      cd ~

      Then download and import the signing key.

      • Thanks I installed chrome with success now 🙂

        How can I open chrome on the terminal, and get back to the terminal command?

    • Xiao Guo An (Admin)
      5 years ago

      Add the & symbol at the end of command like below:

      google-chrome-stable &
    • Jessica
      4 years ago

      Hi Xiao,
      I followed your instructions and got this:
      [16837:16837:0418/231344.950565:ERROR:browser_main_loop.cc(1485)] Unable to open X display.

      Please help!
      Thank you =)

  • Rahul Nirfarake
    5 years ago

    Thanks a lot, it is very good.

  • went through all the steps for a command line install, but I get a permission denied when I try to execute crome

    using ls I get this:

    -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1873 oct  9 04:59 /opt/google/chrome/google-chrome
  • Hi, i followed your commands to install google chrome on my computer ( Ubunto 18.04). But I did not finished the installation because something like appears.

    lenovo@lenovo-Lenovo-B50-70:~$ sudo apt-key add linux_signing_key.pub
    OK
    lenovo@lenovo-Lenovo-B50-70:~$ sudo apt update
    Atteint:1 http://mg.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic InRelease                 
    Réception de:2 http://mg.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates InRelease [88,7 kB]
    Réception de:3 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-security InRelease [88,7 kB]
    Réception de:4 http://mg.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-backports InRelease [74,6 kB]
    252 ko réceptionnés en 10s (24,9 ko/s)                                         
    Lecture des listes de paquets... Fait
    Construction de l'arbre des dépendances       
    Lecture des informations d'état... Fait
    623 paquets peuvent être mis à jour. Exécutez « apt list --upgradable » pour les voir.
    lenovo@lenovo-Lenovo-B50-70:~$ sudo apt install google-chrome-stable
    E: Impossible d'obtenir le verrou /var/lib/dpkg/lock - open (11: Ressource temporairement non disponible)
    E: Impossible de verrouiller le répertoire d'administration (/var/lib/dpkg/). Il est possible qu'un autre processus l'utilise.
    lenovo@lenovo-Lenovo-B50-70:~$ sudo apt install google-chrome-beta
    E: Impossible d'obtenir le verrou /var/lib/dpkg/lock - open (11: Ressource temporairement non disponible)
    E: Impossible de verrouiller le répertoire d'administration (/var/lib/dpkg/). Il est possible qu'un autre processus l'utilise.
    lenovo@lenovo-Lenovo-B50-70:~$ sudo apt install google-chrome-unstable
    E: Impossible d'obtenir le verrou /var/lib/dpkg/lock - open (11: Ressource temporairement non disponible)
    E: Impossible de verrouiller le répertoire d'administration (/var/lib/dpkg/). Il est possible qu'un autre processus l'utilise.
    
    • Xiao Guoan (Admin)
      4 years ago

      It’s likely that your system is doing software upgrade in the background, so the installation failed. Once the background upgrade is finished, you can install Google Chrome.

  • Thanks for the tutorial!! Worked perfectly, even after I messed up the order once! New to Linux and one of the first programs I installed using the command line, and first time viewing and editing a GNU AFAIK (now to try and understand what that was and what I did). I’d be interested to learn a bit about what I’m doing a bit before throwing in those commands, kind of scary for a noob 🙂

  • root@ehealth-OptiPlex-3050:~# sudo apt-key add linux_signing_key.pubOK
    root@ehealth-OptiPlex-3050:~# sudo apt update
    Reading package lists… Done
    E: Could not get lock /var/lib/apt/lists/lock – open (11: Resource temporarily unavailable)
    E: Unable to lock directory /var/lib/apt/lists/

    i cannot update shows this

    • Xiao Guoan (Admin)
      4 years ago

      It’s likely that your system is doing software upgrade in the background, so the installation failed. Once the background upgrade is finished, you can install Google Chrome.

  • Hi Xiao, Thanks for this but i get a message…
    Package google-chrome-stable is not available, but is referred to by another package.
    This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
    is only available from another source

    E: Package ‘google-chrome-stable’ has no installation candidate

    Can you assist?
    Thanks,
    David

    • Xiao Guoan (Admin)
      4 years ago

      I have never seen this error on my computer. Are you using a 32 bit system?

  • Yes

    • Xiao Guoan (Admin)
      4 years ago

      Google Chrome doesn’t support 32 bit system.

  • root@newyork_7:~# google-chrome-stable
    [6712:6712:0313/235837.153932:ERROR:zygote_host_impl_linux.cc(89)] Running as root without –no-sandbox is not supported. See https://crbug.com/638180.
    root@newyork_7:~#

    how to solve it?

    • Xiao Guoan (Admin)
      4 years ago

      Don’t use root account to start Google Chrome from command line.

  • Jessica
    4 years ago

    Hi Xiao,
    I followed your instructions and got this:
    [16837:16837:0418/231344.950565:ERROR:browser_main_loop.cc(1485)] Unable to open X display.

    Please help!
    Thank you =)

  • Ishvarya Jain
    3 years ago

    $ sudo apt install google-chrome-stable
    E: Could not get lock /var/lib/dpkg/lock-frontend – open (11: Resource temporarily unavailable)
    E: Unable to acquire the dpkg frontend lock (/var/lib/dpkg/lock-frontend), is another process using it?

  • peri092
    3 years ago

    Hello, I tried doing them both ways, but after installing it and clicking on the browser my computer stops working and I would need to do a force reboot.

    Any tips?

    Maybe I did something wrong?

    Thank you 🙂

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