How To Downgrade Chrome Version On Windows PC [2023]

Sometimes updates bring more inconvenience than benefit. Dissatisfied want to return to their familiar interface. So, many may find that the location of the tools they are used to has changed, or that the developers have abandoned the function they are used to at all.

Therefore, users want to undo changes made without their consent and return what they liked. In Internet slang, this is called rollback – to return the old, familiar version of the program. Few people know, but google chrome provides such an opportunity. You need to follow several consecutive steps.

Restoring a version using a backup

Would wish to know how to downgrade the Chrome version? First, you need to stop the google chrome background process

Menu> Settings> Show advanced settings > System Menu > Settings > Show advanced settings > System > Uncheck “keep running in the background. After that, you need to restart Chrome.

Then you should open the folder where Chrome is installed. There are two folders in it, one contains the latest version of the program, and the other contains the previous one. There will also be shortcuts for different versions.

After that, you need to copy the shortcut of the old version of google chrome to the appropriate folder. You need to copy the shortcut, and not move it to the Chrome folder. This may require administrator rights.

Going into the folder, you need to rename old_chrome.exe to chrome.exe. This is a very important step, it will prevent the new version from launching from the old google chrome shortcut. The computer may also ask you for administrator rights when renaming.

It is better to move the folder with the old version to a safe place, since Chrome stores only two versions of the browser on disk, and the next time it is updated, it may delete the older one. The folder for safe placement can be located anywhere, most importantly, not where the current google chrome is installed, since deleting it also deletes all the contents of the folders.

Now you can create a shortcut to launch Chrome safely and conveniently. There are several ways to do this at once – drag the shortcut to the desktop, right-click on it and select “send to desktop”, pin it to the taskbar, or pin it to the home screen.

Now you can try to run this shortcut after closing all other Chrome windows. After starting, check the browser version. To do this, in the address bar of google chrome, you need to enter about: version and press enter.

Possible problems and errors

If, after the steps taken, a new version of the Google browser is launched again, then one of the errors may have been made:

• Chrome was not installed in the general program files folder but in a separate folder for your user. You need to do all the above steps already at C:\Users\<UserName>\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\
• All background browser processes have not been closed. You need to open the task and application manager and check for running background applications. It is necessary to stop all Chrome services before running the old version of the browser.

You should also remember that the backup copy of the old version of the program created in this way will not be updated, for this you will need to run the main version.

Alternative way

If your application folder did not have the necessary versions and shortcuts, then in order to roll back the version you need to use a slightly different method.

First, you need to download the chrome-portable archive, for offline installation. You do not need to run it, because if the browser is already installed, an error will occur. You need to unzip it.

As a result, the folder will contain:

• Chrome-bin
• Chrome. exe

Now you have to copy the bin folder and exe file to the folder of the corresponding version of the browser from Google. Having opened this folder, you need to find the exe-file again and create its shortcut (as described above).

Now the shortcut can be run and check the version. If you use this method to restore the previous version, it will automatically connect to accounts and synchronize in accordance with the settings.

With this method, it is also necessary to disable all background browser processes, and, if necessary, close them manually.

A complete reinstallation of the browser

The most radical of the methods. It is worth applying if the previous ones did not work, as personal data may be lost. To prevent this from happening, you should synchronize with the cloud, or export the bookmarks as a separate file, which you then add again to the installed browser.

The first step is to remove the current version of the program. You can use the standard Windows tool, which is opened through Start > Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs.

After that, it is also desirable to delete the Google user profile containing bookmarks and passwords. To do this, you need to enable the display of hidden files and folders and go to the local user folder. Next, follow the address: AppData>Local> Google, and delete the browser along with all the data.

Installing an old version

There are sites on the Internet where you can find old versions of many programs, including browsers. In this case, you can choose which of the previous versions to install.