Installing Chrome Extensions Without Signing in With a Google Account

Google requires that you login with a Google account before you can install any Chrome extensions.

The following is how to install an extension without logging in (under Windows.  The same should work under Linux and Mac):

  1. Find the ID for the extension.  When you browse the extension in the store you will see a URL similar to the following:  https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cookies/iphcomljdfghbkdcfndaijbokpgddeno?hl=en.   The hash string after the ‘cookies’ string (the name of the extension) up to the ? is the id.
  2. Download the .crx extension file.  Use the following URL and replace the <ID> string with the ID for your extension:  https://clients2.google.com/service/update2/crx?response=redirect&x=id%3D<ID>%26uc.  Chrome will complain that the extension cannot be added from this site.  Just ignore/OK it and you will be able to download it.
  3. Download and install (if you don’t already have it) 7zip.
  4. Create a directory and move the .crx file into it.  Go into that dir, rename the .crx file to .zip and use 7zip to extract the file.
  5. Then back in chrome enter the following URL:  chrome://extensions/
  6. Towards the top-right of the page, check the “Developer Mode” checkbox.
  7. Then click on the “Load unpacked extension…” button and navigate to the directory that contains the unpacked .crx file and select it and it should install the extension for you.

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