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I see there are discussions addressing installing software using the USC (as well as some comparisons to the Add/Remove Programms feature in Windows), but nothing regarding how one goes about deleting/uninstalling software (such as Google Chrome) that was not installed using the USC (and therefore, is listed in neither the USC nor is it present in the Installed list in Unity).

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The Software Center is basically a front-end for the apt package manager. So, if you install a package using apt in the terminal or synaptics (which is also a graphical interface for apt), you'll also find this in the USC and can uninstall it there. It may happen that you have to click on the bottom line "also show technical packages" (or similar) when searching for something for some programs to appear in the USC.

If you install software that does not come as a .deb package but as a script (install.sh for example), hopefully the script also sets up a new script (mostly called uninstall.sh) that will uninstall this software. I think the ATI graphics driver from the ATI website does (or did) that.

Note that the second way requires you to trust that the developer set up the install and uninstall script correctly, otherwise it may happen that not all files are removed.

The message of this is: If you can, use your package manager to install software. This means in the case of Ubuntu, use .deb files, the USC/Synaptics or apt itself. You can even mix them the way you want. They all are built on top of apt, which is the important thing here.

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  • Thank you. Software Centre offers Chromium, but not Google Chrome.. so I d/l that from the Google website. Now I have reason to believe that the software is corrupt, so I just wanted to uninstall and then re-install it.
    – user254460
    May 30, 2014 at 23:02
  • Unfortunately, I do not have access to a ubuntu computer right now. Can you explain how google chrome was installed? Was there a .deb file or a .sh file involved? To uninstall, try this: sudo apt-get remove google-chrome* and then sudo apt-get autoremove. Do not forget the '*' in the first command. By the way, chromium is a pretty good alternative in my optinion.
    – verpfeilt
    May 31, 2014 at 10:19
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To remove from commandline:

sudo apt-get remove google-chrome then sudo apt-get autoremove should achieve what you want.

You need to know the package name - normally the command you use to execute it from terminal.

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  • Thanks. Although I am able to access (execute) Google Chrome through the Terminal (google-chrome), when I type sudo apt-get remove google-chrome -- it just displays "unable to locate package google-chrome." sudo apt-get autoremove asks for confirmation of deletion of files, none of which are google-chrome.
    – user254460
    May 30, 2014 at 22:59
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If Chrome was downloaded as a .deb file, open it with the USC and click "Re-install". That should do it for you.

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