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Run Chromium with flags

There are command line flags (or "switches") that Chromium (and Chrome) accept in order to enable particular features or modify otherwise default functionality.

Current switches may be found at http://peter.sh/examples/?/chromium-switches.html


It is important to note that using these switches is not supported or recommended. They should only be used for temporary cases and may break in the future.

To use a command line switch:

On Windows:

  1. Right click on your "Chrome" icon.
  2. Choose properties
  3. At the end of your target line add the command line flag. For example:
    • --remote-debugging-port=9222
  4. With that example flag, it should look like: chrome.exe --remote-debugging-port=9222

On OS X:

/Applications/Chromium.app/Contents/MacOS/Chromium --remote-debugging-port=9222

# for Google Chrome you'll need to escape spaces like so:
/Applications/Google\ Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google\ Chrome --remote-debugging-port=9222

On Linux:

chromium-browser --remote-debugging-port=9222

Setting V8 Flags

V8 can take a number of flags as well, via Chrome's js-flags flag. For example, this traces V8 optimizations:
chrome.exe --js-flags="--trace-opt --trace-deopt --trace-bailout"

To get a listing of all possible V8 flags:
chrome.exe --js-flags="--help"

Browse the V8 wiki for more flags for V8.

Setting Flags for Chrome on Android

Visit 'about:version' to review the flags that are effective in the app. 

You can change these like so:

 # For content shell
 adb shell 'echo "chrome <flags>" > /data/local/tmp/content-shell-command-line'

  # For chromium test shell
 adb shell 'echo "chrome <flags>" > /data/local/tmp/android-webview-command-line'

# On a chromium checkout, the following utilities can be used:

# For content shell:
adb_content_shell_command_line <flags>

# For chromium test shell:
adb_android_webview_command_line <flags>

# Or, you can launch content shell with flags directly
abd_run_content_shell <flags>
adb_run_android_webview <flags>

Remember to quit the app completely and restart for flags to take effect.
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