Trying to install the Proxtube extension for Google Chrome I cannot drag the .crx file into Chrome. What's wrong?

Question

I followed the description on the website but when I try to drag the proxtube.crx file into the Tools tab my Unity launcher to the left gets highlighted and I can't seem to drop the file into Chrome in order to install it.

How can I fix this? I'm using Ubuntu 12.04 LTS x64 and Chrome Version 24.0.1312.52

Solution

In Chromium (tested) and according to deveoper notes in Chrome (untested) we can load extensions from chrome://chrome/extensions/. After unzipping the .crx files (which are basically ZIP compressed) we can browse to the file's directory by ticking the "Developer mode" box in the upper right corner to select "Load unpacked extensions...":

See also:

• How do directly modify a Google Chrome Extension File? (.CRX)

An alternative to Proxtube is the extension Stealthy which also works through proxies and can be used for any sites including YouTube.

Comments

[sun2rge]

I have installed extensions for Chrome which are not in the official Webstore by downloading them to my desktop, enabling "developer mode" on the extensions page and then dragging the extension file from my desktop on to a blank space on the extensions page (not onto the tab). IMO, "Load unpacked extensions" is not applicable for .crx files (which are packed). I used to use "Load unpacked extensions" to point to an uncompressed folder containing uncompressed extension components.

[Takkat]

@vasa1: thank you again for this note.

[cruxfilm]

@vasa1: Thank you. I managed to install it ticking Developer Mode but it seemed quite buggy. Like before I couldn't drop it on the extension page. After restarting Chrome and having only the Extension tab open it suddenly worked. Cheers!