Is there a way to use a previous Chrome Version?

Question

i'm trying Electron and so far i'm loving it.

For work purposes, i need to use a previous Chrome Version in my app (49 would be ideal).

Is there a way to use a given (previous) version in my app?

Thanks a lot

Answer 1

Using an outdated version of Chromium (it's not Chrome) in Electron is likely to be a non-trivial task. Electron combines Node.js and Chromium into a single executable (source). You can't just download a different version of Chromium and put it in a directory somewhere and have it get used.

If you're lucky, doing this "just" means building Electron from source. Electron is open source. The repo is on GitHub here. The repo goes back to 2013, so it covers the period when Chrome v49 was released (exactly four years ago, March 2nd 2016). In theory, you find the right point in the history of the repo, check out that version, and build it.

Of course, that means you don't have access to any improvements in Electron in the last four years.

If you wanted to try to get Electron's latest source to work with an old version of Chromium, it'll be a lot more work. You'd need to:

1. Clone the Electron project locally.
2. Find the source code for Chromium for the release you want.
3. Update your local Electron source to use that version of Chromium.
   • Dealing with any issues that arise because the Chromium interfaces Electron uses may have changed.
4. Deal with any issues that causes in the Node.js side of things. You may need to get an old version of the Node.js source as well, from about the same time as the Chromium version you're running.
   • Again dealing with any issues that arise because the Node.js interfaces Electron uses may have changed.

Answer 2

Google removes older versions from Package Archive whenever an update is released.

The only way is to maintain your own repository of these installation packages.

Or you could download packages from third party given you understand security threat you might expose yourself to.