Update – We’ve now got a fix, click here to read the update!
I added a post back in October which detailed how to get Skype working on your Chromebook. It got a few hits, as did the video demo, which was recorded on the floor in my garage. Classy.
Since then I’ve had far too many emails about it, with many asking where the article is, where the links to the various bits are and whether there’s a quicker way of doing it. Basically, people want a quick fix and don’t want to read my explanation of how or why it works. Bagghhh! You kids. Society is going to the wall. Annyywayyy..
It looks like the method, which you can find below for reference, no longer works. Whether Google have updated something we’re not quite sure, but I’m determined to find another way.
Here’s the quick and dirty method. Do let me know if it still works on yours. I’ve tried it on a couple of Chromebooks but it now fails to load and shows this…
1 – Grab your Chromebook. Hopefully you’re reading this post on it, so head now to the Chrome Web Store and install Kids Sight Words.
2 – Now download one of these ZIP files. You’re basically going to run the Android Skype app on your Chromebook…
Double-click on it to open it so you can see the contents. It’s going to look a bit like this in your File Manager and you should see a folder called “com.skype.raider.android”. Don’t do anything else just yet..
3 – Go to Tools->Extensions and Enable Developer Mode.
You then need to click “Load Unpacked Extension”. Go to your open ZIP file from above. Go into the “com.skype.raider.android” folder. Don’t worry about click any particular file – just go to the folder and click OK / Open.
There’s a small error that appears, which can be safely ignored. However, when you do try to run the app it fails. We’d love to know if you’ve found a way around this or if it does indeed work on yours.