Google Chrome Arrives on ARM64 Linux, Widevine DRM Included

Summary

You can now install an official Google Chrome build on Arm64 Linux devices, including the Raspberry Pi. Back in March, Google promised Chrome for Arm64 Linux in “Q2 2026” so users on SBCs, AI desktops and the growing-fleet of Snapdragon laptops out there, could use the flagship browser and benefit from the handful of extras it offers over a vanilla Chromium build. The search giant hasn’t said a whole lot about that effort since then, but Arm64 builds of Chrome were recently added to Google’s official Linux repos for Debian and RPM-based Linux distributions – thanks for the tip Steven H – and they do work. When I went to the official Chrome download page on my Raspberry Pi 5 running Ubuntu 26.04 LTS, it gave me an AMD64 installer. That won’t work. But a quick edit of the download URL replacing amd64 with arm64 did the trick: a native Arm64 version. It might not be officially out yet, but it works The Google Chrome Arm64 Deb package installed without issue via apt on Ubuntu, netting me a aarch64 build of Google Chrome v150 on the stable channel. As the Deb adds Google’s repo as part of the installation, future updates will come through normally alongside other updates. I haven’t tested the RPM, so if you’re on Fedora and it all works fine there, let me know in the comments. Running Chrome (arm64) on Raspberry Pi 5 2K YouTube playback was buttery smooth without HW decoding Chromium, the open-source version of Chrome, is already available on Arm64 devices, so too are scores of Chromium-based web browsers, including Vivaldi. Google Chrome proper showing up is, arguably, a bit of a non-event itself – at least to long-time Arm users. What is more interesting is what else is along for the ride. Chromium lacks Google account sync, but Chrome proper has that. It works in my testing. I signed in with my Google account and it pulled in my extensions, bookmarks, password and settings. For those moving between devices regularly, sync is a boon. Widevine is included, though issues...