Upgraded Google Chrome on Ubuntu and immediately noticed it was eating up CPU like crazy. No idea why, maybe a bug in the new version. Needed to downgrade quickly.

The usual first step is apt-cache policy to see available package versions:

apt-cache policy google-chrome-stable

But it only showed the latest version. Not helpful.

After some digging (found this guide useful), the straightforward fix is to download an older .deb directly from Google’s repository.

Finding the Right Version

Google maintains a Chrome releases blog where every update is announced. Browse through recent entries to find a stable version released before the issues started. For example:

Stable Channel Update for Desktop
Tuesday, July 29, 2025

The Stable channel has been updated to 138.0.7204.183/.184 for Windows, Mac and 138.0.7204.183 for Linux...

The Linux version number is what you need: 138.0.7204.183.

Downloading and Installing

Download the specific .deb package directly from Google:

wget http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/pool/main/g/google-chrome-stable/google-chrome-stable_138.0.7204.183-1_amd64.deb

Install it with dpkg:

sudo dpkg -i ./google-chrome-stable_138.0.7204.183-1_amd64.deb

CPU usage went back to normal.

Quick Notes

  • Always download from Google’s official repository (dl.google.com), not third-party sites
  • Version format is typically [version]-1_amd64.deb for 64-bit Linux
  • To prevent auto-updates from re-upgrading: sudo apt-mark hold google-chrome-stable

Held the package for a few days until a fixed version came out, then let it update again.