Discover all about Google’s Chromium browser. Chrome is the most popular browser in the world, but there would be no Chrome without Chromium, the open source project behind it. Here’s what Chromium is, where you can download it, how it shapes your online experience, and if you hate it, how to get rid of it.
While the names are similar, Chrome and Chromium, the tags represent two different web browsers. But they are related.
One leads to the other. One is open source, the other is not, not really. You dominate the landscape of the world’s navigators, like a single huskie dominates a team of chihuahuas in the Iditarod. The other is used by less than 0.03 percent of everyone who used a browser in the past month.
Chrome and Chromium, and also Microsoft’s new Edge, under the microscope to better understand what Chromium does and how it influences the development of its offspring. Here’s what you need to know to better understand both Google’s Chromium browser and Chrome.
Chromium is not only the name of a browser, but also of the open source project that generates the source code used by Chrome, Edge, and others. Google is the main backer of Chromium (it started the project when it released Chrome in September 2008), but because the code is open source, others, including people not employed by Google, contribute to the Chromium project.
Microsoft, for example, started providing serious information about Chromium in 2019 and regularly brags about how many “commits” its engineers have contributed to Chromium. In October 2020, the Redmond, Washington company said its commits (changes made to source code) had reached 3,700.
The browser compiled from the current Chromium source code is called, unsurprisingly, chrome . Chrome and Edge, on the other hand, start with Chromium but don’t end with it. Instead, Google and Microsoft add their own proprietary code to Chromium that creates services like the browser’s automated update mechanism and features like its tabbed user experience (UX), to create the real Chrome and Edge.
Think of Chromium as an ancestor of Chrome and Edge, and not necessarily a close one, sharing its DNA with polished browsers.
How Chromium is different from Chrome
Google’s Chromium browser is a subset of Chrome and Edge, as Google and Microsoft incorporate other components and features into the former to create their products. Everything in Chromium is in Chrome Y in Edge, but not everything in Chrome or Edge is in Chromium.
The obvious differences lie in the complementary services that Google provides, such as the automatic update mechanism, or the built-in support for technologies such as digital rights management (DRM) components that allow Chrome and Edge to play copyright-protected content.
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First difference between Chromium and Chrome
But the biggest difference is not in the length of the two browsers’ feature or support lists, but in their inherent stability (or instability). Chrome is rough and not just on the edges. In practical terms, the latest version of the Chromium browser will be far more buggy and prone to crashes than even the crudest version of Chrome or Edge. Google says so, in fact. “It may have many errors,” warns the .
Even the least polished of the four “builds” Google maintains for Chrome and Microsoft for Edge, both labeled “Canary,” is substantially more stable than Chromium.
A second difference, one that many have relied on when choosing Chromium over Chrome or Edge, is that the former collects and transfers less information to Google than either.
Chrome and Edge can send crash reports and usage statistics to Google and Microsoft, while Chromium cannot. In Chrome, that collection and streaming are turned off by default. (They can be enabled from the browser settings panel). In Edge, such data collection can be turned on or off, depending on the operating system.
Windows 10, by far the most used platform for Edge, has its own settings that apply to Edge as well. Most instances of Windows 10 will have diagnostic data enabled, which Edge reports to Microsoft. On other operating systems, like macOS, collection is turned off by default, like Chrome, but it can be turned on from the pain of preferences.
Chromium, on the other hand, completely lacks this data collection and reporting feature.
Where do I download Chromium
The most convenient place to obtain a copy of Chromium is from the .
That page should automatically recognize what operating system you’re running and offer the appropriate edition of Chromium. If not, select from the list at the bottom of the page: Windows x86, Windows x64, Mac, Linux x86, Linux x64, and Android.
Chromium browser can be downloaded like other browsers. This version is for macOS.
The site also identifies the current build number and its age, the latter usually in minutes. That’s how fast a Chromium version converts.
For more information on downloading Chromium, including how to find and get a specific version of the browser, to use for testing and debugging, for example, see .
Can I run Chromium and Chrome (or Edge) on the same system?
In short, yes, Chromium can be run at the same time and on the same system as Chrome or Edge. You don’t need to, say, uninstall Chrome to add Chromium to your machine.
This is identical to how the various “channels” of Chrome and Edge work on a single Windows PC. You can, for example, run the “Canary” build of Chrome for Windows alongside the “stable” version of the browser. The same goes for Edge.
Not surprisingly, other browsers have jumped on Chromium’s coattails, using the open source project’s source code to boot into an application without all the hard work of building core functionality.
Many are niche, let’s be nice and call them shop , while others have been important in recent years, but have since lost popularity. They include:
- Opera. The former Norwegian browser, now owned by a Chinese collective, ditched its proprietary Presto rendering engine in 2013 for Blink, the Chromium-created engine that Chrome and Edge are based on. According to analytics provider Net Applications, Opera had a 0.70% stake in October, just half of what it controlled a year earlier. for Windows, macOS and Linux
- Vivaldi. Created by a team made up largely of former Opera engineers, Vivaldi debuted in 2016 and its CEO called it a “throwback” to the days when browsers didn’t have minimalist user interfaces (UIs). In October, Vivaldi’s share was recorded as zero or too small to measure. for Windows, macOS and Linux.
- brave. Founded by a former executive at Mozilla, the developer of Firefox, Brave is best known for removing everybody ads on the page and replace them with your own. Brave claims that it splits revenue with users, who receive a form of crypto-backed currency. Those users can, if they wish, divert all or part of their currency to one or more websites. Like Vivaldi, Brave did not register in Net Applications’ stock measurement. for Windows, macOS and Linux.
Other browsers that take advantage of Chromium include made-in-China options like QQ and Qihoo 360 Secure Browser, as well as Epic and Comodo Dragon.
What Chromium lacks that Chrome has
Among the familiar features of Chrome and/or Edge and functionality missing from the Chromium browser are:
The Chrome and Edge update service , the mechanism in the browser that automatically updates the app whenever a security update or feature update is pushed to users. (Those updates, whether related to security or features, ultimately originate with Chromium, of course.) Chromium doesn’t update automatically, so when, for example, bug fixes are issued, the browser doesn’t get them unless the user takes the time to download a newer version.
Widevine Digital Rights Management (DRM) module support . Therefore, Chromium cannot play Netflix content, as that service relies on Widevine to block content copying.
Are there security issues with Chromium?
Vulnerabilities found by Google and Microsoft’s own engineers, as well as those removed by independent security researchers, are regularly patched in Chromium, making it as secure (or from one’s perspective, as insecure) as Chrome or Edge.
At the micro level, it is not clear when, during Chromium’s ongoing development, development engineers add security fixes. The Chrome stable channel is updated with patches approximately every two to three weeks; Edge usually does the same thing two days later, so the Chromium browser needs to be updated at least that often. But because bug fixes hit the more unstable channels of Chrome and Edge, like the meager build, “Canary,” before they do Stable, it follows that the source code maintained by the Chromium Project, and therefore the Chromium browser, it must be modified before being converted to “Canary”.
But because Chromium lacks an update mechanism, security patches applied to source code will not be reflected in a user’s copy of Chromium unless that user manually downloads a later version. Skipping an update service is the biggest security threat to Chromium.
More explicit, and the reason this question comes up regularly, is the fact that criminals have either embedded malware into Chromium or distributed modified versions of the browser to include the attack code. (For more information, see below.)
How do I get rid of Chromium?
Chromium can be removed the same way any app is downloaded.
In Windows 10, for example, type uninstall in the desktop search field, then when βAdd/Remove Programsβ appears in the results, select it. Click on the Chromium entry, click the Uninstall button, and in the next dialog confirm the action by clicking the Uninstall button there.
In macOS, select the Applications folder in the…
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