How to Install Google Chrome on Debian 11

The new version of Debian 11 is now available for download. In this article, I am going to show you how to install Google Chrome on Debian 11. If you are new to Linux, Debian 11 could be your alternative to start your journey to the Linux world. It is stable and also easy to use. Debian 11 comes with Mozilla Firefox as the default browser. Personally, I do not like Firefox. So, the first thing I do is to install Google Chrome for my browsing application. Firefox is great, don’t get me wrong. It’s a matter of personal preference.

Google Chrome is not available in the Debian repository. In other words, we cannot use the Debian Software Center to install this program. But don’t worry, follow this guide below to solve it.

Steps to Install Google Chrome on Debian 11

Step 1. Download Google Chrome

Visit the link below to download the latest version of Google Chrome for Linux.

https://www.google.com/chrome/

Choose the DEB version from the list

Click Accept and Install. The download process will begin. When completes, you should have a file called: google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb

Step 2. Enable the Debian Software Sources

Before we continue, we need to make sure that our Debian software sources are set correctly. Open Software & Updates. And then enable the following software sources. And then, reload the software list.

Step 2. Install Google Chrome

If you right-click the DEB file above from the Files, no suitable program can install this deb file. It’s a bummer. But anyway, let’s do it the other way. Right-click on the empty area on the Files where you saved the DEB file. Choose Open in Terminal as shown below.

On the Terminal, login as root user with this command

su

dhani@debian:~/Downloads$ su
Password:
root@debian:/home/dhani/Downloads#

Now, install the DEB file with this command

dpkg -i google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb

Likely, you will end up with the following error

root@debian:/home/dhani/Downloads# dpkg -i google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb
dpkg: warning: 'ldconfig' not found in PATH or not executable
dpkg: warning: 'start-stop-daemon' not found in PATH or not executable
dpkg: error: 2 expected programs not found in PATH or not executable
Note: root's PATH should usually contain /usr/local/sbin, /usr/sbin and /sbin

To solve this issue, simply execute this command as root

export PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin

Google Chrome needs a fonts-liberation package. In case the installer failed to install it automatically, we can use this command to install.

apt install fonts-liberation

Now let’s try again

dpkg -i google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb 

Output

root@debian:/home/dhani/Downloads# dpkg -i google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb
(Reading database … 135744 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb …
Unpacking google-chrome-stable (92.0.4515.159-1) over (92.0.4515.159-1) …
Setting up google-chrome-stable (92.0.4515.159-1) …
Processing triggers for gnome-menus (3.36.0-1) …
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils (0.26-1) …
Processing triggers for mailcap (3.69) …
Processing triggers for man-db (2.9.4-2) …

Done. Now enjoy Google Chrome on Debian 11