With Google taking it’s sweet time to approve Vortimo Beta4 we thought we’d show you how to install by side-loading the extension. If you are worried that we do nasty things in the extension’s code (hey… you shouldn’t trust anyone) you can browse through the code yourself.

Step 0: If you haven’t done so – install the desktop application from https://vortimo.com/beta4/

Step 1: Download the Chrome extension in ZIP format:

Unzip the ZIP file somewhere useful. In this example we’ll go with c:\tmp\. You’ll see a directory called ‘dist’. So the extension will live in ‘c:\tmp\dist’. You can really choose any directory.

Step 2: In Chrome – Go to settings -> More Tools -> Extensions:

Step 3: Enable Developer Mode. It’s a toggle switch on the top right corner. It allows you to side load the extension from a ZIP. You still need to manually do it – so you still have control of what extensions you’ll load.

Step 4: Load the extension. Click on ‘Load unpacked’ and navigate to where you unzipped the ZIP file. Pick the ‘dist’ directory.

Yay! The extension is loaded and good to go. Remember to install the desktop component too and feel free to disable developer mode afterwards.

Step 5 (optional): Test that everything is working. Open a new tab AND NAVIGATE SOMEWHERE. The extension only shows up once it’s code is injected into the page and that only happens when a new page loads. So do a Google search for ‘test cricket’ and make sure the extension shows up:

You can mouse-over on the nugget (the little thingy on the left middle of the screen where you control Vortimo) to see all the options.

Remember that by default – highlighting and marking is disabled for Google search results – so don’t be alarmed when you highlight something and you’re not seeing it 😉

Start the server by hand (preferred way) or start it via the extension. The screenshot below is for Windows. If you’re on Mac/Linux you need to use your imagination a bit.

Once you’ve started the desktop app the Vortimo UI will open in a new tab in your browser and you should see the Google search show up:

If for some reason it doesn’t show up – or you closed the UI (by mistake) you can always open it again by clicking on the ‘Open UI’ button in the extension:

Now you’re all good to go! Hope this helped.