How to launch google-chrome/chromium application shortcut in fullscreen/kiosk mode

Solution 1:

How to use Chrome browser in kiosk-mode

Use it like this:

google-chrome --kiosk http://example.com
chromium-browser --kiosk http://example.com

tested with Ubuntu 12.04, google-chrome-stable 30.0.1599.66-1 and chromium-browser 28.0.1500.71-0ubuntu1.12.04. But only if there is no other instance of the browser running.

So close all browser windows and then use it with the option and it should definitely work as expected.

Other things I've learned

Checking --help or man google-chrome didn't help because:

Chromium has hundreds of undocumented command-line flags that are added
and removed at the whim of the developers.   Here,  we  document  rela‐
tively stable flags.

So --kiosk is an option that is deliberately un-document, because it might disappear at a whim... which it didn't since over 2 years. But, well you have been warned.

Solution 2:

Peter Beverloo has comprised a list of command line options at http://peter.sh/experiments/chromium-command-line-switches/

Solution 3:

In my case only --kiosk didn't help that much because I wanted to run in app mode (--app=URL) -- which disables some distractions like navbar or bookmarks.

I've found from Peter Beverloo's link in other answer this --start-fullscreen flag. So OP would probably go with something like

TLDR

$ google-chrome --start-fullscreen --app=http://website.com