Copy Chrome extensions from one computer to another

Has anyone successfully downloaded Google Chrome apps (or extensions or whatever they are called) from another browser and then installed them on Chrome? Google Web Store and Google Play are blocked where I work, and I just want to install Adblock.

When I visit the web store (on a non-blocked network), it just says that I need to install Chrome first.

1. Locate the extension folder from an existing installation. You should find it in

   Chrome user data directory → Extensions → {a 32 "a→p" character hash}

   It should be fairly obvious which hash corresponds to which extension upon inspection, but you can often find a readme.txt, or a messages.json file in a _locales sudfolder, from which you can identify the extension. On my local system the hash for Adblock was cfhdojbkjhnklbpkdaibdccddilifddb (this is probably globally unique, but just check), and then there were versioned subfolders. Choosing the most recent version directory should be fine.

2. Copy this folder to the new computer.

3. Go to chrome://extensions in the target Chrome browser and enable "Developer mode" by the checkbox in the upper right.

4. Press "Load unpacked extension..." and choose the version-number folder inside the desired extension folder.

(3 and 4 as described by Google)

The extension should now be loaded.

I tried this locally by creating a new Chrome user profile and loading the extension as described above, and it seemed to work at a first glance (it loaded OK), but I assume no liability :-) .

Also, if your company blocks the extension store to avoid its employees installing extensions, you should be aware of that circumventing such policies might not be appreciated. The better choice for your future employment might be to talk to the department responsible for the block.