Step-by-Step Guide to Install and Configure SwitchyOmega Chrome Extension

Step 1: Download the SwitchyOmega_Chromium.crx file.

Step 2: Install the extension by enabling Chrome's developer mode (chrome://extensions/), then dragging the .crx file onto the extensions page.

Chrome’s recent security policy may reject the offline .crx file with the error CRX_HEADER_INVALID. Two work‑arounds are provided.

Solution 1

The most reliable method is to install the extension directly from the Chrome Web Store, but this can be difficult for users in mainland China. A tested third‑party site (https://crxdl.com/) offers downloadable extensions that install without the error.

Solution 2

Rename the downloaded file’s extension from .crx to .rar or .zip (if zip extraction works), then extract the archive.

The extracted directory looks like the screenshot below.

Open chrome://extensions/, enable "Developer mode", click "Load unpacked", and select the extracted folder. If installation still fails, rename the folder _metadata to metadata (remove the leading underscore) and retry.

Step 3: Configure the proxy. Use the same IP and port as your proxy tool (e.g., IP 10.200.71.21, port 33128).

Step 4: Set proxy bypass rules for addresses such as 127.0.0.1, ::1, localhost, google.com, baidu.com.

Finally, enable the proxy profile in SwitchyOmega and browse the web through the configured proxy.