Apps, Extensions and scripts cannot be added from this website

Question

I'm trying to add the Rapid Interface Builder extension to chrome using the rib.crx file I downloaded from https://01.org/rapid-interface-builder/downloads/2012/rib-preview-1-chrome-extension

Unfortunately, every time I open the crx file with chrome I get the following error:

Apps, Extensions and scripts cannot be added from this website.

Any ideas on how to fix this?

Answer 1

Instead of opening the file, you have to: extract it (crx are zip files), then visit chrome://extensions, enable developer mode, and load unpacked extension.

The reason for this is: lots of people try to abuse chrome apps/extensions to install nasty applications to your browser. So Chrome tries to make it impossible to automatically side-load these apps without you making sure that is really what you want to do.

So.. typical caveats of installing software apply when using this approach.