Question: What about plain Chrome browser?

[gavinengel]

Can you assist with making an apk run as a Chrome extension?

[niutech]

I would be a huge deal! Meanwhile, where can I get the CRX with Android runtime, if I don't have a Chromebook?

[PlasmaPower]

For right now, you have to get chromium OS. They are working on making it compatible for other platforms, the git repo is here. Only a small part is done. It is nowhere near running an app.

[niutech]

Thanks. I managed to download and install the x86-64 ARC runtime in Google Chrome 39 on Windows (download CRX). This is just the first step.

[PlasmaPower]

...And how did you get that? I thought it hadn't been released yet! I haven't tried it, does it allow you to install these extensions?

[vladikoff]

[PlasmaPower]

I suspect it requires other libraries built into Chrome and/or ChromeOS.

[vladikoff]

Nope ;)

[PlasmaPower]

WOW! This is amazing! Time to test it with chromium.

[vladikoff]

Going to post a HOWTO in a bit. Testing on Windows...

[PlasmaPower]

This appears to be the first copy on the web! Googling the md5sum and extension key turn up nothing.

[niutech]

On Windows, I downloaded the Twitter apk, put it into an unpacked Chrome extension (download ZIP), then installed the ARC runtime CRX (id: bjbgoaembggnebnfiogjikhpikmjnlha) and then the Twitter extension, but this is all I got:

and this is the dev tools log:

ARC onInstalled HTML5 FS init: 214.000ms
gen_main.min.js:22 ChildPlugin jsInstaller:0:dexopt(so_executable) Run: 2039.000ms
gen_main.min.js:22 timeout to spawn ChildPlugin process: dexopt(so_executable), dexopt --preopt /vendor/chromium/crx/com.twitter.android.apk $auto v=r,o=v,m=y,u=n
gen_main.min.js:18 retry to spawn with timeout 4sec.
child_plugin.js:297 ChildPlugin jsInstaller:0:dexopt(so_executable) Run: 4005.000ms
child_plugin.js:300 timeout to spawn ChildPlugin process: dexopt(so_executable), dexopt --preopt /vendor/chromium/crx/com.twitter.android.apk $auto v=r,o=v,m=y,u=n
child_plugin.js:174 retry to spawn with timeout 8sec.
child_plugin.js:209 the child process has been loaded: so_executable/dexopt
child_plugin.js:297 ChildPlugin jsInstaller:0:dexopt(so_executable) Run: 3824.000ms
child_plugin.js:302 0xDF0E7C2D is not a valid instance ID.
main.js:59 Failed to dexopt on installation.
main.js:154 ARC Window Popup: 152.000ms

[vladikoff]

See https://github.com/vladikoff/chromeos-apk/blob/master/archon.md

[PlasmaPower]

@niutech Could you please release/find a copy of that extension for i686 or i386?

[niutech]

Which one, Twitter extension or the ARC runtime extension?

[xcasex]

ARC runtime would be great @niutech

[niutech]

Unfortunately, the i686 runtime is not available yet. Meanwhile I have updated the x86-64 runtime to version 38.4410.120.28. If you install this CRX file instead of loading it unpacked, you may have to change the extension ID in the manifest.json file of any child extension (containing APK).

To get rid of the incompatibility notice, I had to remove the Chrome OS check of the Plugin.prototype.init method in the plugin.js file. Now APK extensions start loading.