If you’re working in a corporate environment, you may want to prevent Chrome from automatically updating. You can disable auto updates with these steps.
Windows
- Hold down the Windows Key and press “R” to bring up the Run window.
- Type “regedit“, then press “Enter” to bring up the Registry Editor.
- Navigate to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Policies \ Google \Update \
Note: You may have to create the “Google” and “Update” folders. - Right-click “Chrome” and select “New” > “DWORD 32-bit value“
- Give the value a name of “AutoUpdateCheckPeriodMinutes“. Set the value data to “0“.
MacOS
- Close Chrome
- From the Finder, select “Go” > “Utilities“.
- Launch “Terminal“.
- Type the following command, then press “Enter“:
defaults write com.google.Keystone.Agent checkInterval 0
Once you restart your computer after these steps, Chrome should not auto update again.
Jon says
How is the method that Jeremy noted reversed? Reinstalling does not.
Jeremy Borum says
Success on a Mac Sept 29, 2017:
The “official” Google-given method given is this, but it doesn’t always work. The updater sometimes, on some systems, finds a way to reset itself and update anyway.
In Terminal: defaults write com.google.Keystone.Agent checkInterval 0
The most foolproof method is to deny Chrome the permissions it needs to install the update software and run it. Empty these directories:
/Library/Google/GoogleSoftwareUpdate/
~/Library/Google/GoogleSoftwareUpdate/
Then change the permissions on both folders named GoogleSoftwareUpdate so that there’s no owner and no read/write/execute permissions.
In terminal:
cd /Library/Google/
sudo chown nobody:nogroup GoogleSoftwareUpdate
sudo chmod 000 GoogleSoftwareUpdate
cd ~/Library/Google/
sudo chown nobody:nogroup GoogleSoftwareUpdate
sudo chmod 000 GoogleSoftwareUpdate
If you want to be double-certain, then do the same for the folder Google one level up.
cd /Library/
sudo chown nobody:nogroup Google
sudo chmod 000 Google
cd ~/Library/
sudo chown nobody:nogroup Google
sudo chmod 000 Google
I did this immediately after installing the Chrome version I need for my machine, and it worked perfectly. Now when I check About Google Chrome it gives me the error “Update failed (error: 10)” It’s still trying to update, but it can’t do it any more.