Hello everyone and Welcome back to Emulator Info! As the name suggests, we post daily blogs on different emulators through intensive research and easy-to-understand presentation.
Today, our Emulator is somewhat Special! This emulator, called ARChon Android Emulator, is an innovative project which is not bound by the OS of the PC it uses. If your system runs Chrome browser (which I’m sure it does), ARChon Emulator just might be the emulator for you. So let’s learn How to download and Install ARChon Emulator on Linux along with many more aspects.
Work together to Win!
ARChon Android Emulator
ARChon Android emulator is the first of its kind that needs just the Chrome browser to work on. This makes it very different from all other emulators.
It has got great compatibility due to the fact that it can be used on any device like Windows, Linux, OS X, or any device that essentially runs the chrome or chromium Browser. This also means it works perfectly on Chrome OS and Chrome books.
ARChon runs Android APKs on chrome. It supports numerous games (though not all of them). This amazing Open-source platform was developed at the University of Illinois to help archivists find aids online.
System Requirements
- This is the best thing about ARChon Emulator
- It has bare minimum system requirements
- If you have a chrome browser in your system, you can access this amazing Emulator
- Still, the minimum requirements are:
- .NET framework installed
- x86-compatible 800 MHz processor
- 512 MB of free disk space
- Minimum 64MB graphic memory
Download and Install ARChon on Linux
The set-up procedure for ARChon Emulator is similar on all OS. But we will focus on Linux today.
Download
- Download the ARChon Runtime .zip file from the GitHub repository(https://archon-runtime.github.io)
- Extract this file to a location of your preference
Install
- Open the Chrome browser
- Go to the three dots on the tops at the right top
- More tool-> extensions
- Turn on developer mode from the upper right corner
- Hit “Load unpacked” browse to your extracted folder and select it
-
Linux Terminal: Sudo apt-get install npm. Hit Enter
-
Terminal: Sudo apt-get install nodejs nodejs-legacy. Hit Enter
- No w you can see “ARChon custom runtime” among your other extensions
Testing with Sample App
- Head back to the GitHub repository
- Download the Sample App, extract it, and load it as an extension
- “Launch” the app
Converting other Apps
- You can convert any normal APK file into a chrome OS executable file
- For Windows:
- Download nodejs
- Download chromeOS.apk
-
Linux Terminal: sudo npm install -g ChromeOS-apk
- Download .apk of any app from the net
- For example, if you downloaded “com.angrybirds.apk”
- Go to the apk containing folder and open terminal
-
Terminal: ChromeOS-apk com.angrybirds.apk --archon. Hit Enter
- Load unpacked as an extension to launch the app
Features and Drawbacks of ARChon
Features
- Runs Android apps on PC
- Works on any computer
- Massive collection of supported android apps
- Completely free
- Regular updates
Drawbacks
- Some apps may not respond
- Sometimes the loading is really slow which might result in crashing
- Launching every app from the extensions menu can be tedious
- Heavy games and apps require PCs with higher specs
Some FAQs on ARChon
How to access the Android menu key in ARChon runtime?
Get the functionality of the Android menu key with Ctrl+Esc
Is there any other way to convert APK to run in Chrome?
Apart from the ChromeOS method, you can use twerk:
- Download the TWERK app from the official Chrome store
- Load twerk as an extension in the browser
- Type chrome://apps in the search bar and hit Enter
- Launch Twerk from the extension page
- Perform drag-and-drop action on the APK in the twerk window
- Configure and tweak with settings however you prefer
- Your application is loaded as a chrome extension
Emulator Info’s Words
ARChon Android Emulator is a great way of experiencing Android Apps and Games on a Linux (or any other) PC. It is not bound to your OS since all it needs is Chrome browse and a PC with decent Specs.
We would rate ARChon Android Emulator 4.7 Stars for its versatility irrespective of the OS and the ease to download. ARChon Emulator is 100% legal and 101% fun! Try it out!
