CODEWITHSUNDEEP
google-chromeinstallationgoogle-chrome-extensioncustomizationchromium
shesek
shesek

Reputation: 4682

Custom installer for Chromium

I would like to provide an installation of Chrome (or probably Chromium?) that comes pre-installed with my extension, installed to a separate folder and has the --enable-experimental-extension-apis turned-on by default. Would also be cool to be able to customize the looks and feels to be more suitable for my brand.

Does anyone know if its allowed by Google's TOS? Is it possible? Was it done before? Is there any easy way to do that, without hacking around on Chromium source code?

Upvotes: 5

Views: 2343

Answers (2)

Brigand
Brigand

Reputation: 86260

If you know enough C to modify some code, mini_installer is a good place to start. This is what people would be downloading anyway, so tweaking some of the code there to suit your needs would be the best bet. Install it where you like, make whatever changes before/after the install, etc.

Otherwise, you could write some kind of script that downloads and runs the installer, and then changes settings. For compatibility with your apparent target audience, a simple batch script would be the best bet.

Another option is Chromium Portable. You make any changes you like, and upload a zip file. All they have to do is download and unzip it. Most users can manage that, but pictures on the download page don't hurt. You could also write a small program or script to download the zip file, unzip it, and run anything that needs to be run (or Chromium it self).

Upvotes: 7

user149341
user149341

Reputation:

It's technically possible and allowed. Indeed, there are a number of forks of Chromium, such as Iron and Comodo Dragon.

Whether it's a good idea is another question entirely. Unless you're prepared to maintain your fork on a long-term basis (and in particular, to provide software updates to your users on a frequent basis), it's probably not a good idea. You'd probably do better to instruct your users to install Google Chrome normally, then give them a link to install your extension.

As far as experimental extension APIs go, I'd avoid them. They may be removed or changed significantly in future versions of Chrome. If you must use them, just instruct the user on how to enable them.

Upvotes: 2

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