How To Use Older Versions of Chrome Extensions

If you’re a poweruser like me you probably have a good collection of Chrome extensions installed. However, sometimes developers start charging fees for their previously free extensions in upcoming new releases. If you still want to use said extensions for “free” you have to get a little “creative”.

There are various ways to go about it but the simplest and most effective solution would be the following:

First, you need to find and download the latest “free” version of your extension. To do this you have to head over to an extension archive.
The two most popular ones are https://crx.dam.io/ and https://www.crx4chrome.com/

Once downloaded you need to unzip the extension and open the file called “manifest.json” in your text editor of choice. Right at the top of that file there should be a line that reads “update_url”. Go to that line and replace the actual URL with some bogus URL (https://localhost e.g.) and save it. We need to do this because otherwise Chrome will update the extension to the latest version (which costs money).

For the next part just type “chrome://extensions” into your URL bar.
From there you have to click on “Load Unpacked” and navigate to the directory where you’ve unpacked and modified the downloaded extension.
That’s it, you can use the extension for free now, indefinitely.

p.s. Lest I forget; you obviously have to uninstall the current version of your extension if you want to install an older one.