How can I downgrade to Chrome 42.0.2311.90?

Question

Google Chrome on my machine recently got updated to v44. I'm working with Selenium WebDriver on Chrome and as soon as I updated Chrome, all my tests went dead. I use Chromedriver v2.16. My partner's PC has Chrome v42.0.2311.90 and Chromedriver v2.16. And tests run fine on his machine. Now, based on this I'm pretty sure the problem is probably not with Chromedriver.

So, how can I downgrade to Chrome 42.0.2311.90?

I've tried using an offline installer from here: Google Chrome Alternate Offline Installer But this always gives me the latest version to install i.e. v44.

The release that I need can be found here: Google Chrome v42.0.2311.90 Stable Channel Update

Answer 1

If you are running on a windows machine you can leverage the package manager chocolatey, this is how we I'm doing it from Jenkins, we call a powershell that uninstalls a previous version and install a specific one: From a powershell ide script window, you need to have installed the modules for chocolatey that is a small price to pay for a lot of benefit:

choco install googlechrome --version 62.0.3202.94 -y

Then to prevent Chrome to self update I am performing this steps: 1. Verify Chrome's current version.

(Get-Item (Get-ItemProperty 'HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths\chrome.exe').'(Default)').VersionInfo

2. Install the version I'm aiming for:

choco install googlechrome --version 62.0.3202.94 -y

You can look for available versions here:

https://chocolatey.org/packages/GoogleChrome

(Find Version History Section)

3. Kill GoogleCrashHandler.exe in any of its variants 32 or 64 bits or both.

4. Delete the Directories C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Update and C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\CrashReporter

You will loose the ability to auto update (which is the whole purpose right) and you will loose the ability to send crash reports and piggy back on that executable to update against your will whenever google deems convenient.

5.Disable Chrome Services

Answer 2

1. Uninstall your current chrome version.
2. Remove all Chrome data for current version from: C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome
3. Download your particular version from chrome_installer.
4. Disable chrome updates using instructions given on this link.

Answer 3

Following steps help you to install your desired google chrome version :

1 - Uninstall your current google chrome version.

2 - Download your desired google chrome version from here : Google Chrome Download

3 - Restart PC once so if any registry or temp file stored of previous google chrome then it will get refresh.

4 - Install your downloaded google chrome. And then turn off automatic chrome update.

Answer 4

This is how you can use an older chrome version "in general":

1. Uninstall your current chrome
2. Install the chrome version you desire
3. DO NOT open chrome!! after installation
4. Instead disable auto-updates like here or here
5. Only then may you work with your desired chrome browser version

As for how to get a specific older version:

You need to google, search forums or try sites like this. It's just "grunt work" to find the version you are looking for. If you're extremely unlucky, the very version you need might even not be around any more.

Answer 5

I struggled with this same problem on Mac, trying to downgrade, and stay downgraded from Chrome 53 to 52 due to a serious bug affecting webaudio.

None of the other recommendation appear to apply any more (or on Mac OS X at least). The app attempts to upgrade itself and there doesn't be a way to configure that in a "Chrome-friendly" way.

Eventually I resorted to force...

• Close and uninstall Chrome

• Edit your /etc/hosts file to prevent update checks from working by overriding the DNS entry:

  0.0.0.0 tools.google.com

• Find and download an old release. This is left as an exercise, this was actually hard and fraught with fear of bad binaries. I was able to cross-reference MD5s from one site that didn't have downloads with another that had downloads.

• Install and run the older version
• Important: Check the "About" page, and point and laugh at Chrome's attempts to check in.