How to block automatic Google Chrome updates

While it is usually not a good idea to block updates of web browsers such as Google Chrome because of security implications that go along with it, there may be cases where you want more control over the updating.

Many programs ship with options to block updates, but Google Chrome is not one of them. This is different from the behavior of most web browsers, as they do ship with options to set updates to manual for instance. This would give the user full control over the updating, and ensure that updates won’t be installed automatically on computer systems.

Please note that Google Chrome is only auto-updated on Windows and Mac Os X machines, and not on Linux.

Block automatic Chrome updates on Windows

As mentioned already, Chrome does not ship with a preference that you can flip to block program updates. There is an option however, and it involves setting a Registry key and installing the Google Update policy administrative template.

Best case scenario is the following one: if the computer is connected to an Active directory domain, all that is required is to set the following Registry value:

1. Tap on the Windows-key on the computer keyboard, type regedit.exe, and hit the Enter-key.
2. Confirm the UAC prompt.
3. Navigate to ComputerHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREPoliciesGoogleUpdate
4. If Google and/or Update don’t exist, create the keys with a right-click on the previous one and the selection of New > Key from the context menu.
5. Set the value AutoUpdateCheckPeriodMinutes to 0.
6. If the value does not exist, right-click on Update and select New > Dword (32-bit) Value.

This disables update checking. Note that Google resumes updating checking automatically for any computer that is not joined to an Active Directory domain. The period is reduced to 77 hours in this case.

If that is the case, you need to override updates by setting the “update override policy” that is part of the Google Update administrative template.

Note that this works only on professional or Enterprise versions of Windows, and not Windows 10 Home as Group Policy is not part of Home editions of Windows.

Here is how that is done

1. Download the Google Update administrative template XML-based file from this Google support page.
2. Extract the contents of the archive, and copy it to C:WindowsPolicyDefinitions.
3. Load the Group Policy Editor: tap on the Windows-key, type gpedit.msc, and hit the Enter-key.
4. Navigate to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Google > Google Update > Google Chrome.
5. Double-click on “update policy override”.
6. Switch the policy to enabled. You can set the update behavior of the web browser to one of the following four options:
   1. Always allow updates (recommended) — this is the default behavior.
   2. Automatic silent updates only — updates are applied only when they are found via periodic update checks.
   3. Manual updates only — updates are only applied when users check for updates manually in the interface.
   4. Updates disabled — this turns off updates so that they are never applied.
7. Click ok to finalize the policy change and close the Group Policy editor afterwards.

Caution

If you disable Chrome updates, your only options to update the browser are to run a manual check for updates in the browser, or check for a new version manually on Google’s Chrome blog, or on third-party sites that write about these updates.

Additional information on turning off auto updates in Google Chrome is available on the Chromium Projects website.

Now You: Do you prefer automatic updates, or manual updates?